Government, Health Care, and Oil Changes

(Written September 30, 2012)

A young father was changing the oil in his car, while his five year old daughter looked on.

Being small, and with the car on a ramp, she could easily see underneath while her father had drained out the old oil and changed the oil filter.

As he prepared to put in the new oil, she said, "But Daddy . . ."

"Not now sweety, I'm busy."

"But Daddy . . . "

"Not now, I'm changing the oil."

"But Daddy, the new oil is leaking out the bottom."

Daddy had forgotten to put the plug back in the oil pan after he had drained the old oil.

Sometimes, the experts fail to see the obvious.

In order to understand why the health care systems of North America and Europe are so screwed up, we need to look under the hood.

The reason for failure is so simple that a (symbolically speaking) five year old could see it. The health care systems have been expelled from the free market.

Think about it. Which systems fail, and which succeed? The US Postal Service is exempt from market competition. It is a government monopoly. But UPS and Fed Ex are in competition, nobody is forced to use them, and yet they deliver better service at lower cost than the Post Office.

Oh, wait, you say, the Post Office charges less for a first class letter than do UPS and Fed Ex.

No. It charges more. But it disguises the cost by forcing low end customers to subsidize the high end customers. For example, it is illegal for a private company to deliver first class mail across town for ten cents. They could do so, but by law, only the Post Office is allowed to deliver such mail across town, and the PO charges as much for that service as it does for delivering mail across the country. So cross country mail only seems to cost less, because the people who would otherwise pay ten cents for cross town mail are instead paying far more.

Health care systems in western countries (including the US) are so clogged up with costs added by government, that healthy people who could otherwise get deep discounts, are instead charged far more, in order to pay for people who live unhealthy life styles.

So I can afford to get fat at your expense. Thank you. Not really, thank the government. I have a right to your hard earned money. At least according to the government.

Under a market system, people could put aside tax free money into their own, tailor-made health care plans. They would then have an incentive to live healthy lifestyles, and to carefully monitor their doctor and hospital bills for waste and fraud.

But what about people who cannot afford to do this?

Welfare, not healthcare laws, would be the proper role of government. Let the government allocate and budget money for poor people. But attach strings. If you smoke, do illegal drugs, or drink alcohol to excess, or engage in promiscuous behavior, or violent crime, then do so at your own risk and at your own expense.

Brutal? Yes.

But it would be far, far more humane than the present system of rewarding people to engage in behaviors that kill them.