Crickets Chirping

[this is another post seeded from a discussion on facebook. a pattern?]

I posted a link to You Do Not Have Health Insurance on facebook and got an interesting response from a friend who’s spent a long time studying the subject. He seems to have a very different viewpoint than I do, which makes me question mine. What to do, when smart people disagree with you?

So here’s my position, at the moment:

The current regulatory system may be utterly flawed in its wording and execution, leading to us spending more yet being sicker, to there being no real choice in healthcare, and to there being millions of completely unprotected US citizens. I see that as more of an argument for fixing the regulations than throwing them away completely, though.

My problem is with the idea that the free market will fix this mess if we just stop trying to check its power.

The free market is amoral. It excels at maximizing shareholder value, but that is its singular goal. It has a poor track record of taking care of people. In fact, its wealth-accumulating mission leads it to exploit and control people unless they are checked by government, collective bargaining or other non-corporate power.

Furthermore, it is only accountable to you to the extent that you have lots of money. I’m one of the majority who don’t.

Without healthy people, we have no economy, and no market, free or otherwise. To make healthcare subordinate to the free market to me seems precisely backwards, and in the long run disastrous. Markets have bubbles and crashes and wild rides up and down. Forgive me if I don’t want that greedy, stumbling drunkard telling my doctor what to do. Or rather, having even more of a say in what my doctor does.

What we have right now is a muddled mess, right? Not totally socialized and not totally privatized. So it’s a bad example to use for arguing either side of the privatize/socialize debate. More of a worst-of-both worlds example. The thing is, there are plenty of examples of successful socialized health care systems in other countries. Where are the examples of successful privatized healthcare systems?

So right now, I lean heavily in favor of socialized healthcare.

</sophist-marxism>

Maybes:

Maybe the act of regulation (not just the particular regulations currently in place) caused all of these problems. Something about the relationship between government and the market creates an inevitable, malignant feedback loop. I’m doubtful of this because of cases where regulation has improved things (e.g. forcing automakers to install seatbelts), making me think nothing’s inevitable about that relationship.

Maybe free markets are the natural order of things and we’ve been ignoring or fighting it to our detriment. Like insisting that the world is flat.

Maybe Obama actually is out to control every aspect of our lives.

Maybe there are examples of successful completely privatized healthcare systems in other countries.