Food is a basic substance that every human being needs to survive. Since such is the case, then does it not seem logical that all human beings have the right to food?
As a result of this right, people without enough money to pay for their food should be allowed to enter a supermarket and take whatever they need to survive at the expense of everyone else. And, since food is such an important product to sustaining human life, then, in a free market system, consumers are at the mercy of the greedy food producers who could artificially raise prices to whatever obscene amount they pleased. At the same time, people in higher income brackets are able to afford better quality food than those in the lower income brackets, creating a two-tier food market.
So what is the solution to this horrific problem in the food market? Well, it seems obvious that everyone should have equal access to food via government funded grocery insurance. That way anyone could walk into a grocery store and pick up whatever food they wanted. Soon shopping habits would change and most people would walk past the ground beef and head straight for the prime rib, not worrying about the cost. The two-tier food system would be eliminated, and everyone would be equal.
Of course, this scenario is not the reality of the current food situation in the United States. Food, like most consumers goods, is provided by a free market system. Prices are actually in the range of most individuals because there is competition in the marketplace. This competition leads to quality food and low, competitive prices that benefit every individual. This is because the food market actually operates under economic principles with little government intervention.
According to the basic economic principle of supply and demand there are only two ways for a product or service to become cheaper in the market place. One of those ways is if the demand for that product or service decreases. Since the population of the world is constantly increasing, this seems very unlikely to occur in the case of healthcare. The other way for prices to decrease is if the production of the product or service increases. This means that the only economically feasible way to decrease prices in the healthcare market is to increase the supply of doctors, hospitals, medical supplies, and prescription drugs.
Herein lies one major fault of Universal Healthcare. Proponents of such plans assume that the current supply of doctors and other important medical supplies and facilities is a fixed number and they only aim to redistribute these products in a manner that they deem to be more just. In other words, they are not striving to increase the supply to make healthcare services more affordable for every individual. Instead, they are taking healthcare services from some people and giving them to others. How fair is that?
Looking back at the fictitious example of government-funded grocery insurance reveals how to make healthcare costs decrease. Current government interventions into the healthcare market through arbitrary licensing of doctors, hospitals, prescription drugs, and other medical goods actually cause the supply of these goods to decrease. This decrease causes the prices of the products to artificially inflate out of the reach of many individuals. Just imagine if every grocery clerk, stock boy, grocery store, and store manager had to be licensed by the government. This would undoubtedly cause the price of food to skyrocket. Loosening, or even abolishing, the restrictions in the medical field would allow more competition into the marketplace. This would cause the prices of healthcare services to dramatically decline. If we can allow such an important product as food to be offered without such arbitrary licensing, then why not allow healthcare to do the same?
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Op-Ed: Fixing Healthcare in a Free Market, a Right to Food?
