Welcome to Dr. Liberty!
My goal in this blog is to offer a free market friendly perspective on health policy and medical ethics issues. I hope you find it educational and provocative.
American medical care has a lot of problems -- on that point, I agree with those on the left and an increasing number on the right. Unfortunately, too many people also think that American medical care has been market-oriented and free. This could not be farther from the truth. Regulations have distorted the market for over a century, beginning with medical licensing, then leading to tax policy that encourages people to buy insurance, to "social insurance" programs like Medicare and Medicaid, to the prescription system, to restrictions on opening new hospitals -- to name just a few examples. These regulations have stifled competition and prevented the rise of a consumer-oriented corporate medical enterprise.
Sadly, when people advocate for "health care reform", they generally do not challenge these regulations. They may want to expand insurance to all Americans, but they don't want to change the underlying structure of the medical system. Under all the major reforms being proposed today, medicine will still be dominated by general hospitals and individual physician practices, physicians will still have their prescription privilege, and will continue to be licensed by the State, and most services will still be paid for by insurance.
The most promising modern movement in the direction of free market medicine is the consumer-driven health care movement, which advocates more out of pocket spending and more freedom for physicians to be entrepreneurs. But it is only a start. For true health care reform, we must be willing to be radical. Given the shortage of physicians throughout the U.S., and especially in rural areas, does it make sense for the State to continue to restrict the supply of physicians through licensing laws? Is insurance really the best way to pay for health care? Should most of us have to ask permission from a physician before we buy medications from a pharmacy? I hope to challenge your perspective on these and other questions.
