Minor Thoughts from me to you

Will Wilkinson presents his Health Care Fantasia that includes the following prescriptions for cheaper health care: decartelization of doctors, abolishing the FDA, offering real insurance markets, creating a health care ideas futures market, creating electronic diagnostic services, allowing people to have big health care savings accounts, and forcing people to have a catastrophic insurance plan. Along with those ideas, he takes a stab at solving the problem of uninsured citizens. I support all of his ideas. Rather than making me repeat what's good, just go read it for yourself.

Last year, Arnold Kling presented his idea for a Medical Guidelines Commission that would:

consist of, say, seven members drawn from the disciplines of medical research, medical practice, statistics and actuarial science, and economics. It would have a staff with similar expertise to evaluate research and to oversee grants to stimulate research where none is available.

The Commission would have two main functions:

• Collect and summarize research about the effectiveness of various medical practices. For those of us willing to work with doctors to make our own decisions, this information would be sufficient.

• Issue guidelines that could be taken as recommendations for best practices. These guidelines would serve those people who would be intimidated by statistical research and prefer to be told what to do. The guidelines might also serve as industry-wide benchmarks.

Guidelines would not be carved in stone. Patients and doctors would be free to choose treatments that differ from the guidelines. Moreover, the guidelines themselves would change over time, because medicine is a constantly-evolving art.

The trick to making health care cheaper is to make health care more plentiful. The more patients can do for themselves, the cheaper health care will become (because the demand for doctor provided health care will be lower). The easier it is for people to become doctors, the cheaper health care will become (because the supply of doctors will be higher).

I'd like to draw attention to something that Will mentioned in his post: does setting a broken arm really require a full-fledged MD? Setting a broken arm has nothing to do with the liver, heart, lungs, kidney's, or any of the other subjects that MD's study. Why not open up the market for health care and allow people to specialize in specific areas of expertise (splinting broken bones) without requiring them to obtain a full medical degree?

(Hat tip to Arnold Kling)

According to FoxNews, Mayor Ray Nagin said that New Orleans residents should be allowed to rebuild anywhere -- as long as they do so at their own risk. Quoth the good mayor I don't recommend you going in areas I'm not comfortable with. I'm confident that the citizens can decide intelligently for themselves..

Actually, I am too. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that citizens will intelligently decide to rebuild in dangerous areas. Why? Because apparently poor decisions no longer have harsh consequences. President Bush's Gulf Coast Rebuilding Coordinator, Donald Powell, recently announced that President Bush would seek $4.2 billion for uninsured home owners that lived in the flood plains of New Orleans. The home owners that lived in that flood plain risked being flooded out. Many of them chose to accept that risk even without flood insurance. No matter. The federal government is now promising to cancel out any of the painful consequences of those decisions.

With consequences like that, I'm sure many citizens will choose to live wherever they please. It would be an intelligent decision too. After all, if the government's bailed them out once, it's likely to do it again. And we'll pay for it. How's that for living in the land of freedom and opportunity? Our government is guaranteeing that you can have the freedom to live wherever you want and your fellow citizens will have the opportunity of paying for your choice.

Occasionally I'll get asked about why I always advocate "letting the market handle it". Various people think it's a naive answer and one that places too much blind faith in capitalism. From now on, when I hear that question, I'll simply point the inquisitor to Professor Boudreaux's convincing answer. An excerpt:

People too often suppose that large social problems can be solved only by deciding ahead of time which particular group of people and procedures hold the key to the solution.

While declaring "Let the government handle it" comes across as a solution, it's no such thing. Instead, it is merely a sign of a simple and baseless faith -- a simple and baseless faith that people invested with power will not abuse it; that political appointees possess or will find better answers than will millions of people pursuing solutions in their own ways, and staking their own resources and reputations on their efforts; that only those 'solutions' that are spelled out in statutes and regulations and that have officials paid to implement them are true solutions.

So yes, show me a problem and I'll likely respond "Let the market handle it." I'll respond this way because I know that not only is my own meager knowledge and effort never up to the task of solving big problems but that not even the Einsteins or Krugmans or Bushes amongst us can know the best solution to any social problem.

Solutions to complex social problems require as many creative minds as possible -- and this is precisely what the market delivers.