The NY Times has an article on Canada’s struggling socialized health-care system, apropos of my earlier post on San Francisco's flirtation with the idea.
The simple issue is, regardless of intentions, the government is not a good supplier of goods or services. It is simply not set up to be responsive to the needs of its citizens the way that a private company is.
In government, if you get a passing grade from 51% of the population, you are re-elected. In private industry, if you please only 51% of your customers, you are out of business.
Also, a free market is much more supportive of a diversity of solutions. If 60% of the market wants traditional medicine, 30% wants to participate in cutting-edge experiments, and 10% wants to suck tree bark and hope, that is fine.
By contrast, when managed by government, everyone has to go along with the majority. If 51% votes for traditional Western medicine, 100% has to live with that result. Attempts at diversity are halting at best. It is a classic tyranny of the majority.
The incentive of government is to provide the least amount of service that avoids getting the current politician (or party) fired. And, they spend your tax $$ in this pursuit, so efficiency is not a primary concern. In a competitive private system, the incentive is to do better than the other guy and to make a profit. Supplying the consumer effectively and efficiently is the only way to survive. The former is a race to the bottom, the latter is a race to the top.
It is not coincidental that the vast majority of medical breakthroughs occur in the US.
A common point made is that we pay more for health care in the US than anywhere in the world. That is true, and it is true because we consume more high-quality health care than the rest of the world. You'll find that we spend more on food, housing and transportation as well, because our standards are higher. (Unfortunately, it is also true that we devote a vastly disproportionate amount of our health care $$ to the last few years of our lives.)
Health care is unlike most markets in the world, I will be the first to admit. Government, however, has not shown itself to be the long-term solution.
Great article. Canada's system is so admired by people in the States, but I don't think they really understand all of the serious downfalls.
I think the most dramatic part of the article is "private insurance companies are about to find a gold mine". WHAT? Socialization is leading to profit for companies so often villified by those who supported Socialized medicine in the first place! The ultimate in Irony.
What is very unfortunate about this system is that it is creating a tiered medical care system. Those who can afford to go to these private centers get substantially better care than those who are forced to depend on the government.
Posted by: The Gentle Cricket | 27 February 2006 at 12:58 PM