Libertarians are always going off about how private enterprise will increase medical efficiency, but they fail to account for human nature. In general, people will pay almost anything for emergency health care, and very little for preventative care. That makes private health revolve around extortionate prices for emergency care, and the profit in emergency care means everything else gets neglected.
Emergency care is also a natural monopoly with an ever larger barrier to entry in the form of high land prices in urban centers, expensive medical machinery, and personnel. That makes it ripe for profiteering, which while not illegal, isn't good for the patients either. Not even in the long run.
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Interesting but not surprising
Date: 2007-05-16 04:55 pm (UTC)Emergency care is also a natural monopoly with an ever larger barrier to entry in the form of high land prices in urban centers, expensive medical machinery, and personnel. That makes it ripe for profiteering, which while not illegal, isn't good for the patients either. Not even in the long run.