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Free markets would fix health care except for one important fact. They don’t exist because of corporatism; monopolies buoyed by congress. You can ask any Republican about how to fix health care and the response is always the same, “We think free markets should fix it.” Ok, what is your free market plan? They don’t have a plan of any kind. I have called and talked to many Republican senatorial offices. Believe me, they do not have a plan of any kind. You would think that over the last 50 years of getting ripped off with health care, they would have come up with something by now. But no, they wait around and do nothing and then cry that Obamacare is so bad.
Not a lot of people are for the repeal of medical licensure. But people for free markets should at least advocate to make them free. Free market politicians aren’t even advocating for any of the principles they stand for. The problem is that politicians represent their lobbyist interests and virtually every politician has taken money from health care lobbies. They can’t go against their bosses. They can only support big business and in this case it is big health care monopolies.
Free market proponents agree to regulations against their own principles out of fear. The main fear driver in health care is bad outcomes. We need to regulate physicians and make sure their training is superb. In other words, they don’t trust the market to deliver quality.
The public supports regulations out of fear. How does it make you feel to have a doctor that is unlicensed working on you? If you’re worried about that, you’re not a real free market capitalist.
Fear of bad care is the driver behind regulations. But keep in mind that many products are inherently dangerous and have to be created with high precision or lives will be lost. Many of these markets are not regulated like health care. For example, does a rocket scientist have to graduate from a certain kind of rocket school? Do car engineers need to work in a residency program for several years at very low pay? Of course, if defense was as inefficient as health care, our military would be weak and the price of defense would cripple the nation badly.
The only way to fix health care is a single payer system. It gets the big corporations out of the picture. It allows for regulation because government will gain the upper hand over corporations.
If you leave health care in the hands of those that own it, nothing will change. You can advocate for policies to repeal licensure and establish free trade, but it will be blocked at every turn by corporate monopolies. Politicians will block you. The bill will never pass. How can a bill pass when 99% of politicians have taken contributions from health care companies? It’s never going to pass, and that’s why Republicans never even try for it; well, and also because they don’t want their bosses to fire them.
Health care is now being reformed at the local level. Again, the only people fighting for reform are those for a single-payer system. Free market advocates are basically full of hot air.
It is at the local level that things can change. It’s harder to buy off every legislator in the country than congress. Several states are pushing for single payer. They are New York, California, Maryland, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. If one of these states passes health care reform laws, you can expect other states will follow.
Here is what a real free market system would look like in Health Care: https://mises.org/library/four-step-healthcare-solution