Free-market solutions #1: Teaching

This is the first in what I hope will be a series of posts on how a free market might solve many of the problems we have with health care in America. I say "might," because I am not actually a healthcare professional; I'm sure that, free from the constraints of government interference, hospital administrators, doctors, insurers, and anyone else involved in the delivery of care would come up with solutions beyond what I can dream of. Though I do not know exactly what the forms are that improvement would take under a free market, I know that respecting individual rights by getting the government out of health care would improve the system in a big way. Here's an idea as to how that might work.

Two problems in health care: 1) It's not in limitless supply, so some people can't afford it -- even when it's a life-or-death decision. 2) Doctors have to be taught their craft. A surgeon isn't simply born with flawless technique; he has to learn it through lots and lots of practice. Often, that practice has to be done on living human beings. As Atul Gawande, a physician who has authored the books Complications and Better, points out, this can seem to create an ethical conundrum: How do we balance the need to train physicians with the patient's need for experienced care?

Under a free market, there's one solution that addresses both of these problems. The answer is that trainee physicians would likely offer lower rates for their procedures, likely done under the supervision of a more experienced doctor. The poor would be able to purchase care at a price they could afford, and the trainee would get experience -- a mutual trade to mutual benefit. Anyone who prefers the security of a more experienced doctor could pay extra for the privilege.

This system is already done at dental schools (and hair salons!) all over the country. Dental care is far less regulated in America than other medical care, so dental schools have been free to discover this solution -- their students get the training they need, and patients obtain dental care they couldn't otherwise afford. The patient voluntarily accepts the risks associated with a trainee in exchange for a lower price; the trainee offers a lower price than he will later command as a full-fledged dentist, knowing that he can build his knowledge by doing so.

Just as a relatively freer market lets people get their teeth cleaned (or their hair cut, or their makeup done) at an affordable price, so would a free market help more patients get the medical care they need -- and medical students the experience they need.

Even Oompa Loompas have rights

The Senate continues to look for creative ways to rob the American people in order to finance healthcare "reform." Many big targets for taxes, like so-called "Cadillac insurance plans" (ie, plans with comprehensive coverage that cost a lot of money), have turned out to be politically contentious -- unions, whom the Democrats love, don't want the high-value plans taxed because that would affect many of their membership, for example.

So, politicians look for lower-hanging fruit. There's Bo-Tax, and now there's talk of taxing indoor tanning salons. After all, it's easier to argue that Bambi McBimbo shouldn't be able to have her new boobs or her fake-'n'-bake unless she helps everybody else get health insurance than it is to, say, argue that Grandma's Medicare coverage should be cut or that workers in high-risk professions should pay the government because they have more comprehensive coverage than Americans in lower-risk jobs. It's especially easy to argue against tanning salons because, after all, they're associated with increased cancer risk, so why shouldn't people who use them pay extra into the system, given that they'll be more likely to need medical care for cancer in the future?

But to go down that path is to violate individual rights completely. If Bambi wants plastic surgery or a bronze bod, it is her right to pay for it, without having also to pay for health care for those who cannot or will not pay for it themselves. If she wants to up her skin cancer risk, it is also her right to do so without government interference -- though she also cannot expect anyone else to cough up the cash if she gets melanoma and needs treatment.

No matter how frivolous a procedure may seem, and no matter how much others need health care and can't afford it, the need does not justify the violation of rights.

A blow to rights? I'll show you a blow to rights!

Of an amendment to the House healthcare "reform" bill that would bar any insurance plan paid for with federal subsidies from covering abortion (a similar amendment is being considered by the Senate),

Representative Jan Schakowsky, Democrat of Illinois, said the restrictions were “the most crushing blow we have seen to reproductive rights since Roe v. Wade,” the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional right to abortion.

Well, no. Rep. Schakowsky is confusing a woman's actual right -- which is to have control over her own body, and to obtain an abortion without government interference if she can afford to pay for it and a doctor is willing to provide one for her. What a woman does not have is the right to have her abortion at someone else's expense.

The real blow to rights, of course, is the healthcare "reform" proposal itself -- telling insurers what they may and may not cover instead of protecting their right to exercise their own judgment, prodding doctors to follow bureaucrat-chosen guidelines instead of protecting their right to make medical decisions according to their judgment, and so on.