Earlier this year my dog was hit by a car and broke his pelvis, he was in terrible pain for weeks and had to take loads of painkillers (he’s fine now, Take me to the local park Caring for her every day has made me realize that going to the doctor or dentist is similar to going to the vet in one very important way. Health Insurance Since medical insurance isn’t involved, we are pretty clear about our options and what matters is how much those options cost. When we go to the doctor or dentist, the only price we face is the copay, and when we’re talking about a medical procedure, we don’t know much about the menu of options and the price of each. We pay for our dog’s stitches and medications once, and now there are no additional bills or paperwork or nasty surprises. insurance A company to look up to.
No hassle. No red tape. No uncertainty. Taking my dog to the vet was more like taking my car to the store than a trip to the doctor. We go in, we’re told what our options cost, and we choose it. In contrast, when all we have to pay is a small copayment and the insurance company handles the rest, there’s less incentive to pay attention to the costs. The amount the insurance company paid for my visits to the optometrist and sleep clinic is a significant part of my actual compensation, but it doesn’t feel like it because it never hits my checking account. If people received their raises as a salary rather than as increasingly expensive health insurance, would they feel their real income was stagnating?
But healthcare is human rights? The UN says soBut declaring something a human right doesn’t change the fact that it can’t be provided without resources that can’t be used to produce other things. Of course, we can think of ways in which others waste Their Let’s stop spending money on stupid nonsense. Still, maybe we should look in the mirror and ask ourselves why we need to spend $1,000 on airfare, hotel, and food to attend a protest in Washington DC because we think the government should give us something “for free.” When we say something should be “free,” we are simply saying “someone should pay for it.” Eliminating the price does not eliminate the cost; it just hides the cost.
moreover, health care What people “need” is determined by cost. Diabetics don’t have many alternatives to insulin, but in difficult cases, laws can be exploited and there are alternative treatments. For many other, less severe illnesses, there are a range of treatments available that don’t require a doctor’s visit or medication. For example: Economist Brian Caplan recently suggested that a small reduction in the risk of death I decided not to get a tetanus booster because I didn’t think it was worth the pain and suffering of the needle, but it sparked a little unnecessary controversy on Twitter. There’s a difference between thinking the vaccine is harmful and thinking the vaccine for a non-communicable disease that kills two Americans a year is not worth it. Earlier this week, one of my nieces got impaled by a tree branch while visiting. Would we have called 911 and demanded they prepare an operating room to remove the branch? No, we got out the tweezers. It’s easy to “need” more medical care if someone is willing to pay for it.
The argument that “this is the price we pay for health equity and justice” doesn’t make sense to me. An ambulance taking someone with a stomach ache (or a stab wound) can’t take another person at the same time. Ambulances require resources. Saying “yes” to one more ambulance is saying “no” to one more fire engine. At a price where the trade-off is obvious, the right choice is not clear.
When you take your dog to the vet, The market loves you – and so does your little dogLife would be a lot easier if going to the doctor was like taking a dog to the vet.
Art Carden is Professor of Economics and Healthcare Real Estate Trust Fellow at Samford University.
