Let’s say a drug has been shown to extend the life of terminally ill patients by months or even years. How much should we pay for it? Is there such a thing as a drug’s being too expensive? If we say “yes,” aren’t we putting a price on what a life is worth?
Americans like to think that our health care system is very different from “socialized medicine” in Canada. In fact, the two health care systems are far more similar than they are different.
Jeb Bush has been taking a beating lately – from the talking heads on TV and radio, from some of his own backers and from the mainstream media.
The Obama administration claims that the premium increases in the (Obamacare) health insurance exchanges are averaging 7.5 percent across the country.
Our health care system is a complex system. As I explained in Priceless, there is no known, reliable model of how it works.
The news isn’t good for the ObamaCare exchanges. For the coming year expect higher premiums, higher deductibles, narrower networks and an overall market that has stopped growing.
Now that Paul Ryan is the presumptive new leader of the House of Representatives, what happens next?
You must have heard the scary scenarios. I have repeated some of them myself. Obamacare threatens to impose a burden on the workplace that is the equivalent of a $6.00 an hour health minimum wage.
What Adam Smith said about the butcher, the brewer and the baker is equally true in health care. You can’t be successful in the medical marketplace unless you are meeting other peoples’ needs.
In contrast to Obamacare, the Bush health plan envisions a much smaller role for government and a much bigger role for individual choice and competition in the marketplace.