| Thursday, July 22, 2004 |
12:00 - There but for the grace of God
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3809
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Via Dean Esmay and Bill Quick, a cautionary set of statistics about where the best of intentions may lead:
Health care can have a zero price to the user, but that doesn't mean it's free or has a zero cost. The problem with a good or service having a zero price is that demand is going to exceed supply. When price isn't allowed to make demand equal supply, other measures must be taken. One way to distribute the demand over a given supply is through queuing -- making people wait. Another way is to have a medical czar who decides who is eligible, under what conditions, for a particular procedure -- for example, no hip replacement or renal dialysis for people over 70 or no heart transplants for smokers.
I'm wondering just how many Americans would like Canada's long waiting lists, medical czars deciding what treatments we get and an exodus of doctors.
You can look at either of two things: a) the fact that at least nobody has to pay up front for this health care, regardless of ability; or b) in which direction people sneak across the border for it.
It's an observation that many, but yet too few, made regarding Soviet socialism and the Berlin Wall, and about Cuba. Sure, they had da free health care and da 100% literacy on the other side of da wall. Why, then, oh why doesn't anyone take a raft to Havana or jump the fence Eastward when they need a CAT scan or a better life for their children? Why's everyone going the other direction?
Yet something tells me that we won't learn this lesson until we've tried changing our system to match what's never worked in the past. I guess we oughtta get some points for optimism.
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Brian Tiemann
