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The free market system doesn’t work with healthcare because healthcare is not an economic good / service in the classic definition. If you go back to your economics 101 textbook or read the classic economists like Adam Smith, you will see that for a free market to work, several things have to be true:<br> • The consumer has to have serious knowledge of the product. Very difficult in healthcare where detailed knowledge requires deep understandings of biology and chemistry. Consumers rely on their doctor's knowledge but the doctor is one of the “sellers” of the product. <br> • There have to be adequate substitutes available. If I can’t afford soda pop, I can choose Kool-Aid or water or cheap beer…. What’s the substitute for a kidney transplant? Are we prepared to say that transplant is too expensive, let me die instead? <br> • There has to be a large number of sellers and buyers. Outside of major cities, how often are there a large number of hospitals to choose from? <br> You get the point…medical care is very different than selling cars or soft drinks or other commodities that work so well in the free market. So please stop advocating “free market” solutions to this problem.
By Mark J from Lincoln CA
