National Health Care Doesn't Add Up

A well-done op-ed by Daniel Steele, a professor at the University of South Carolina, on why we really don't want national health care. It was written in response to an op-ed from a doctor who belongs to a group of physicians calling for national health care. Remarkably, these doctors think bureaucrats are better than insurance companies. Let's hope they're better at medicine than policy.

Professor Steele does a nice job summarizing the advantages of using competitive markets for health care rather than a single payer system:

"There are at least four ways that free markets encourage better costs and services:

• Markets more efficiently allocate resources to the right needs. Government wastes resources.

• Markets facilitate innovations by forcing out failed programs. Government retains programs well past their useful life.

• Markets foster “learning” by trial and error. Government regulates and retards innovation.

• Markets are controlled by consumers. Government programs tend to be controlled by special interests. For health care, this would mainly be doctors and other suppliers (including insurance companies), all who would steer regulations to protect their positions."