01-24-2017, 01:33 PM
(01-24-2017, 01:21 PM)David Horn Wrote:(01-22-2017, 11:48 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: The reason it's stupid to tie health care to employment is because then the incentives are misaligned between the payer - the employer - and the patient, resulting in inefficient allocation of resources. That problem applies in spades when you tie health care to the government.
What's needed is for people to pay for their own health care, whether it's directly or through an insurer. If you really want to subsidize it, give everyone a voucher or a universal basic subsidy.
Healthcare is not a product or even a service in the commercial sense. It has more in common with fire and police protection.
To the contrary, health care is comprised mostly of services and some products. There's no fundamental difference between prescription drugs and, say, vitamin D pills other than distortions imposed through regulation. There's no fundamental difference between the market for doctors and the market for mechanics.
Police and the associated justice system are different because it involves use of force, and likely devolves to warfare if there are competing "providers" - although I would point out that there are substantial areas that are primarily policed by private police forces, such as many university campuses, so it's really the justice system that's the natural monopoly.
Fire protection is less clear; the issue there may be that there's too much incentive for private services to engage in criminal activity, though there have also been cases of publicly employed firemen resorting to arson to protect their employment.