This might disturb you at first, but remember: the free market is always right, so clearly we’ve collectively made a rational choice here. We’ve decided that although our healthcare costs are far higher than in Europe, this is worth it in return for far higher death rates from hospital infections.
USA!
The Healthcare Market is NOT a Free Market:
Two graphs for you tonight. First, who spends the money in this laissez-fair healthcare market you speak of?
For every 10 cents someone spends on their healthcare, other people pay 90 cents. You may think that’s “fair” but it most definitely is not a free market. Competition is the result of consumers using their resources as efficiently as possible to weed out the higher priced goods and services. When people aren’t paying with their own money they are naturally going to spend it inefficiently. This graph shows how the government intervention in the economy has made the price system unable to function properly. In a free market the government would not have such a large presence.
Speaking of a large government presence, check out the top ten spenders when it comes to healthcare spending in this country. If it were free market it would probably be all private corporations (since that’s where most people in America get their insurance) and small business. Let’s see how it looks:
Well. That’s different. 9 of the top 10 purchasers of government, basically the people who spend the most on healthcare, is actually the government. That definitely wouldn’t be happening in a free market.
Nice try though.
Health care is most definitely NOT a free market, and people who say that it is either don’t know what a free market is, or don’t understand how health care works, or are lying to you for partisan political reasons.
Where we are today with health care is a direct result of government intrusion into what USED to be a (somewhat) free market. Hence, more of the same will not fix it.
(via antigovernmentextremist)
