ARNOLD KLING
August 14, 2011
The Top Political Contributors
August 11, 2011
Gender and the New Commanding Heights
August 11, 2011
Jamie Galbraith Makes an Assumption
August 11, 2011
Macroeconometrics: The Science of Hubris
August 10, 2011
Real and Nominal Bond Yields
BRYAN CAPLAN
August 14, 2011
The Effect of Thumb Sucking on Income
August 12, 2011
The Voice of Cold, Hard Truth to All Would-Be Educators
August 12, 2011
Ability, Morality, and Prosperity: A Paper and a Report
August 11, 2011
The Theory of Time and Frittering
August 10, 2011
Male Variance and the Remnants of the Gender Gap
DAVID HENDERSON
August 9, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken", Part Two
August 8, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken"
August 5, 2011
James Bovard on the Peace Corps
August 4, 2011
Summers Way Off on FDR and 1941
August 3, 2011
The "Amazon" Tax
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YES!!!
A Government program will eventually have to take over health care in this Country, due specifically to the failure of the legislative process. Special Interet money can get legislative support, no matter how bad the cause. Health Care has become too expensive to let the Market do its job, not because of failure of the Market, but rather legislative failure to curb excesses. Case in point: Any Drug costing in excess of $3 per unit is too expensive to be borne by the American economy, if more than a quarter million units are used per day (my offbeat calculations which will not be explained). All medical Providers must come up with cheaper treatment programs, from which Windfall profits have been removed. lgl
Was it justified? Spend 30 seconds in the comments section of Brad DeLong's blog and you tell me.
That the most cutting edge medicine costs a lot shouldn't bother us one bit. It will be affordable to most in 7 years-ish. If we pine for the days when all medicine was cheap, we should probably look at what we were getting for the money. Leeches don't cost much at all these days.
Jason,
I don't want to contradict you, but it is like my above Case illustrated. There are somewhere over 16,000 drugs proscribed in this Country. These Drugs are unaffordable at $3 per unit, if all are used in excess amounts of daily use (We are talking 1-8 units per day by in excess of a guarter million Patients). The current round of great Wonder drugs are hitting the market with a Price tag of around $7 per unit. I do not know the cost of a MRI, but have a family member taking one today. The cost is liable to be somewhere around $1800, if my guess is not completely wild. What happens to this most beneficial form of medical surveal, when a quarter million Patients per day receive MRIs at such a price? lgl
lgl:
I'm not sure I follow your point. Any guarantee of consumption regardless of cost, as is the case with government insurance or socialized care, would exacerbate the problem of excess consumption, right?