Op-Ed: Fixing Healthcare in a Free Market

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-- This article is part 1 of a 5-part series --

Out of those 47 million 8.7 million are children. At the same time, health insurance premiums and the cost of prescription drugs are increasing while the quality of care seems to be declining.

Some people will point to these rising costs and say that greedy drug companies cause them. This, however, is far from the truth. The real reason for the rising costs is government intervention into the healthcare market.

The rising cost of pharmaceuticals, for instance, can be traced to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA forces companies to put their drugs through multiple years worth of research and testing. They also charge the companies huge fees to allow the drugs into the marketplace. These fees do not allow for smaller startup companies to compete with the larger, established companies.

The government also makes the healthcare situation worse by passing laws that have good intentions, but fail miserably. One specific example of this can be seen in the 1974 ERISA law. This law grants tax benefits to employers who provide healthcare to their employees. On the surface, this seems like a good idea. Give the employers an incentive and they will cover their employees, but it has had adverse consequences. Since that law was passed, less and less individuals have decided to cover themselves. So now, instead of catering to the individual, health insurance companies cater to the needs of big businesses. Thus, as wealthy corporations have pumped more money into the healthcare system the prices have artificially risen out of the range of most individuals.

It seems clear that the current level of government intervention into the U.S. healthcare market is not working for the average healthcare consumer. There is no doubt that a major change in the system needs to occur in order to solve the crisis. Some people will claim that more government intervention, via Universal Healthcare or Socialized Medicine, will be the cure. The United States is, after all, the only developed nation that does not have a form of government funded health insurance available to all individuals. These plans give the government even more control and power over the healthcare system.

In Great Britain they have a form of Socialized Medicine known as the National Health Services (NHS), which is the world’s largest publicly funded health service provider. They claim that the health services are free when it is clear that someone has to pay the doctor’s and hospitals. Proponents of Socialized Medicine will tell you that the government pays for it, but where does the government get the money? It comes from the taxpayer, to the tune of 78.5 billion dollars per year and that money is forcibly taken from every individual in the country.

Let’s look at it this way. Imagine my grandmother was dying from a treatable form of cancer, but she was too poor to be able to pay for the chemotherapy. She lacks health insurance and no one in my family has the money to pay for the treatment. Would it then be permissible for me to steal money from someone else in order to fund her treatment? What if I had fifteen other people with me? Or 100? Or 20,000? Of course it would never be appropriate for me to steal to get her treated, even with a gang of 20,000 supporters, but that is what the government does in the case of Socialized Medicine. They take from every individual, even the healthy ones, to pay the medical bills of those that are sick.

Not only is the organization funded through theft, but they can also refuse to treat any individual that they choose. Take the case of John Nuttall as a stark example. Two years ago Mr. Nuttall broke his ankle in three places, but it had not healed properly with a plaster cast. He now lives in constant pain from the feeling of his bones rubbing together. The pain is so excruciating that the doctors have prescribed him a daily dose of the strong painkiller morphine. Nonetheless, NHS doctors refuse to operate on his ankle to fix the problem. Why? Because he is a smoker and he is unable to kick the habit. Nuttall makes a great point about the absurdity of their denial, “I want to warn other smokers that they could be denied medical treatment and there is nothing we can do about it. I have paid my dues as a taxpayer and now the NHS won't treat me.”

Since more government regulation and intervention makes the healthcare situation worse, there is only one solution left to consider: deregulation of the healthcare market. This is the only to decrease the price of healthcare, increase innovations in the healthcare market, and improve the quality of care, solving the healthcare crisis.