[from LRC blog 5/9]

The fact that there is no free market in medical care is dramatically illustrated by that most hated of medical institutions: the waiting room.

When I go to a lawyer, an engineer, an architect, a supplier of components or services of nearly any kind, I may be greeted in a reception area. I am generally offered refreshments and made comfortable for what is typically a very brief stay. The room is invariably quiet, with no hint of the sometimes extremely private negotiations taking place elsewhere in the office. Reading materials include current issues of magazines and newsletters relating to the profession of the person I am seeing; they often have interesting and informative articles. If the professional I am visiting arrives more than 5 minutes past the appointed time, I invariably receive an apology.

The contrast with standard medical practice could not be starker. Greetings are rare; customers are often informed via a sign to "check in." Office personnel (including many doctors) routinely discuss intimate medical details in loud voices with each other or over the telephone. Refreshments are non-existent; even a water cooler or restroom is rare. Magazines are generally out of date and never, ever the medical journals and related works that doctors supposedly read. The message: these matters are too complex for ordinary mortals to understand.

Observing the coming and going of patients, it becomes painfully obvious that the 30-60 minute waits are scheduled. The patient is given an unmistakable message in every interaction with the physician or their office staff: the patent's time is worth absolutely nothing, the doctor's convenience takes precedence over everything else.

These doctors' "practices" (they are certainly not operated as businesses serving customers) wouldn't last 1 week in competition with people who knew how to serve their customers, and hired only doctors who could be trained to understood who pays the bills. The artificial shortage of medical personnel produced by the AMA's government-enforced licensing scheme works all too well in perpetuating the casual and deliberate mistreatment of patients.

There is a growing phenomenon of "concierge" medical care, where a few doctors re-discover that treating their patients as valuable customers brings both financial and personal rewards that are not possible in the typical HMO-driven "practice." My internist has a concierge service; on the thankfully rare occasion that I am referred to a specialist the contrast in treatment is remarkable, and inexcusable.

The above is exactly right.

The problems in health care are CAUSED by the government, not by the market. The socialists either don't know this or ignore it. Instead they use the problems caused by the government as an excuse for taking over the entire system, and making things even worse. That is why we call the government the Great Exacerbater.

The above is exactly right.

The problems in health care are CAUSED by the government, not by the market. The socialists either don't know this or ignore it. Instead they use the problems caused by the government as an excuse for taking over the entire system, and making things even worse. That is why we call the government the Great Exacerbater.

Does the gov do anything right? Ok they're so so at beating up on 3rd world nations with high tec weapons but other than that what can they do? Shirley putting this behemoth of mediocrity in charge of a nations most important capacities for survival(health care) would be madness.

Does the gov do anything right? Ok they're so so at beating up on 3rd world nations with high tec weapons but other than that what can they do? Shirley putting this behemoth of mediocrity in charge of a nations most important capacities for survival(health care) would be madness.

No. They don't do anything right. The only thing they're objectively qualified to do is lie and murder. They're not even, as you point out, very good at murdering people.

Health is like anything else the gov controls: politicized and incompetent.

Consumer Reports doesn't take advertising and it actually tests the products it rates. It's pretty reliable guide to the quality of products you're considering buying. It has no power to tax you, but you can buy its magazine for minimum price. Such a private org is what would handle what the FDA and such do today if the government were dismantled.

They would do it without taxing us and without lecturing us.

Just as in writing you make the word carry the weight, in buying/consuming/investing, the buyer/consumer/investor is the one who must make the decision. Anything less, he goes from a man to a child. He chooses what information he needs to make his decision, but once he makes it, he stands behind it. He doesn't look for the government nanny to protect him because the government doesn't. That's what the socialists are too ideological to admit: the government does not protect people, it endangers them. Regulation never solved any human ill, it just added to them. There is no getting away from thinking, acting, assuming responsibility on the part of the man. You can't subcontract it to anybody else without becoming a child, a slave, a passive.