Earlier this week we were treated to a rather depressing example of the flaws in our particular health care system: someone unwilling to seek treatment for injuries sustained in an accident because they knew they weren't able to pay for treatment.
This is the problem with leaving health care to the free market - in order for it to work, people will occasionally have to choose not to purchase services that are too expensive. Lower demand then forces providers to lower prices in order to win customers back... if they are able or willing to provide that service at a lower price at all. This is one thing when the goods or services in question are luxuries, but it's considerably less acceptable when one is asking people to go without treatment for health conditions.
Of course, this is usually the point at which opponents of single payer systems will start trotting out stories of deaths due to shortages of providers or delays which most of the single payer systems can't quite seem to get rid of. I can point out the flaws in our current system all day, but without a better idea, what good is it going to do?
The short answer is that I don't have a perfect solution... but that's not going to stop us from having to choose which set of flaws we find more acceptable or easier to deal with. I think that looks a lot more like a single payer system, or at the very least aggressive efforts to subsidize health care for those that can't afford it.
No comments:
Post a Comment