Krugman: Free Markets have never worked for Healthcare

[MindMover]

Steven Levitt, in his new book, Think Like a Freak, with Stephen Dubner, thinks he was being smart by telling British Prime Minister David Cameron that he should scrap the National Health Service and let the magic of the marketplace deal with health care. Strangely, Mr. Cameron wasn't impressed.

I think there are several things going on here. One is a Levitt-specific, or maybe Freakonomics-specific, effect: the belief that a smart guy can waltz into any subject and that his shoot-from-the-hip assertions are as good as those of the experts. Remember, Mr. Levitt did this on climate in his last book, Super Freakonomics, delivering such brilliant judgments as the assertion that because solar panels are black (which they actually aren't), they'll absorb heat and make global warming worse.

So it's true to form that he would consider it unnecessary to pay attention to the work of lots of health economists, or for that matter the insights of the economist Ken Arrow, and assert: hey, I don't see any reason not to trust markets here. There's also the resurgence of faith-based free-market fundamentalism.

I'll write more on this soon, but I'm seeing on multiple fronts signs of an attempt to wave away everything that happened to the world these past seven years and go back to the notion that the market always knows best. Hey, the solution was always about allocating scarce resources (never mind all those unemployed workers and zero interest rates). And why would anyone ever imagine that market prices are wrong (don't mention the bubble)?

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/23979-free-markets-are-not-always-the-best-medicine

[Doctor_J]

1. Prof Krugman seems to have some cognitive dissonance

He was against Rmoneycare, now he's for Obamacare, but he is bashing the authors for being in favor of free-market health care, which is what Heritage/Rmoney/Obamacare is.

He was right the first time, and is right now. In between, not so much.

[MindMover]

3. Thank goodness for the ability to think and effectively change opinion/behavior .. or else

we would still own slaves ...

[BootinUp]

7. Hi, I call BS. nt

[Warpy]

2. Yes, because calling around when you're on the verge of passing out

from chest pain or pneumonia or any other health crisis to find out who has the cheapest prices would likely be fatal. It's the stupidest thing the far right has ever come up with, the "competition in the marketplace putting the decision making power with the consumer." Meanwhile, he's dead on the floor.

Healthcare doesn't belong in the private market because illness is just not a consumer decision. If it were, the 99% would have to choose the occasional cold while complicated chemotherapy and multiple organ transplants could be chosen by the wealthiest.

Nowhere is right wing dogma proven sillier than it is in health care, from the consumer driven free market idea to the customer service model for hospital staff. None of it works, yet they all cling to it with the zealotry of recent religious converts.

[djean111]

4. + a million.

[dem in texas]

5. Take a Lesson from the Irish Famine of 1840's

The British Parliament were believers in Burke's free market Ideas and thought they'd let the market take care of supply and demand. Then the middleman got in and started speculating on food prices and drove the prices up so high that even farmers with money could not afford to feed their families and millions starved to death while tons of grain, livestock and produce were exported from Ireland. Ireland, Scotland and Great Britain suffered huge and tragic economic damage from this free market experiment. Canada and US also suffered because of the huge influx of millions of penniless immigrants who were being shipped out by the boat load, their fares being paid by the landowners who wanted them off their land to avoid the poor tax. So much for free market and lack of regulation. And in the 1840's experiment, the 1% (the landowners) made out like bandits.

[freshwest]

6. Thanks, that is great deal more than commonly known. n/t

[Yavin4]

8. "Free" Market Healthcare works the same as "Free" Market Fire Fighting

When emergencies happen, no one thinks about shopping around and comparing prices or solicit bids. People want the emergency taken care of.

[jwirr]

9. Good article. We need to add that the free market has never worked for any of the vital services.

[Nye Bevan]

10. I'm a pro-capitalist, NAFTA-supporting fan of free markets,

but I support single payer healthcare 100%. It is obscene that employees of health insurance companies have a financial incentive to make their companies as profitable as possible by deliberately placing obstacles in the way of people who need healthcare.