“Health care made easy?” Isn’t that impossible, with Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, etc? Not at all! Not that it will ever happen, but try this one on for size.
Everyone knows the difference between a straight line and a triangle. A straight line has two points, and a triangle has three points. Both can be used as an illustration of health care. At one end of a straight line is the patient, and at the other end is the doctor. Simple! This is the market at work, and nothing has ever been invented which is more efficient or cost effective. If the doctor charges too much or is inept, the patient will resist, go to another doctor, or do without. The market has resolved the differences between the patient’s desire for quality, reasonable care, and the doctor’s desire to overcharge, or to be inept. The buyer (patient) resists high prices and low quality, and the seller (doctor) gets all he can. The doctor can easily go bankrupt because of his high prices or poor treatments. It used to happen. I saw it happen, growing up in my Dad’s drugstore. A few doctors had such bad reputations, that pretty soon there were no more prescriptions written by them, and their offices ceased to exist.
This is a simple explanation of the “Market” in any situation, be it retail, wholesale, restaurants, homes, builders, autos, or anything which can be bought or sold. The “Market,” is the simplest, most efficient device ever devised, for giving the largest variety, highest quality, and lowest price of anything. The ’market’ regularly causes restaurants, department stores, and for that matter any business, to go under or prosper. It used to be that way with health care.
The triangle has three points. Give them names, and compare them to the straight line. In the health care field triangle, one point is the patient, the second is the doctor, and the third is government. The straight line was converted into a triangle in 1965, with the advent of Medicaid and Medicare, and with Obamacare, it may well have so many points and confusions, that the entire field may collapse, with thousands of doctors quitting or retiring. Getting back to 1965, when the straight line became a triangle: The straight line between the doctor (seller) and the patient (consumer or buyer), was hopelessly disrupted by the third point, government, which became payer for a few, throwing the entire system out of kilter. Not only did it throw the system out of whack, but it allowed untalented, or uneducated doctors to continue their practices, because government continued to pay them, good or evil. When the patient had to pay and negotiate with the doctor, the market was operating at its most efficient setting.
Suppose a restaurant was operated like a triangle. The customer is one point, the restaurant operator the second point, but the meal is being paid for by a bureaucracy thousands of miles away, and the customer is unable to complain, stop payment, or even go to another restaurant, because this one is the ’approved’ one. Make any sense? This illustration can be applied to any business, where something is sold and something is bought, just like health care.
With government paying and adjudicating requests for care for the elderly, the entire market system was ravaged, beginning in 1965. There has been no ’market’ system for health care since 1965, and with Obamacare, it will be so hopelessly strangled, with tens of thousands of doctors quitting, a non medical board which will determine who gets treatment, and even who lives. It will be indescribable. When the doctor doesn’t get paid by the patient, he naturally charges as much as he can, and adds endless tests, procedures, and other charges, because he will be paid for them. Patients demand far more care than they would if they had to pay out of their own funds. The uninsured are allowed to go to a hospital and get free care, because government forces it, and hospitals go broke. Those who insure against ill health, must raise their rates to cover the lack of a ’market’ system, and everyone suffers, either directly or indirectly. With government paying, taxes go up twice the amount needed to cover costs, because of bureaucracy, inefficiency, over use, and fraud.
The substitution of a triangle for a straight line, makes patients distrust doctors, and doctors, even if they are honest, have to charge more, just to sort out the endless paper work. Government, which has become the third point in an unholy triangle, has destroyed the system of checks and balances, commonly known as the “market.” When one receives, one provides, and a third one pays, there is no ’market,’ only confusion. Medicaid and Medicare, as was predicted, have resulted in out of control prices, endless regulations, hundreds of forms, bankruptcies, tons of gobbledygook and administering bureaucrats. Patients get inferior care, doctors are swamped with office work requiring additional employees, hospitals build too many rooms, too much equipment is bought, needless tests and treatments are given, and everyone, including government, pays exorbitant prices for health care.
It all began with a triangle being substituted for a straight line in 1965. Before that date, health care was no more of a problem than auto maintenance, food purchases, or even laundry. Patients paid for their health care, and a wholesome trust existed between two points of a straight line. Doctors made house calls, charged competitive rates, and all was well. Hospitals reacted to market forces, buying equipment and expanding as needed, and not in anticipation of infinite government handouts. The health care straight line, self regulated, as do all ’market’ processes. The health care straight line, was defeated by the triangle, and what has followed, has been a mammoth eruption of high costs, bureaucracy, and outraged citizens. The ’free market’ approach, which levels all things in all sectors, is gone. The new geometric figure for Obamacare, won’t be a triangle, but will probably look like the scribbling of a five year old, and be like that in other ways as well.
Health care made easy? Easy. Eradicate every bureaucracy concerned with health care, and return to a straight line. Don’t hold your breath waiting!