I always assumed it was impossible for a free market to exist in healthcare. One important tenant of a free market is being able to freely enter and exit the market at will. Exiting the healthcare market is impossible. You can’t reasonably choose to leave the market when life is forcing you to engage in it, or choosing to leave the market would lead to death. It’s the equivalent of having a gun put to your head.
Exactly. To me all the basics of life, the bottom tiers of Maslow’s pyramid can’t be privatised. Healthcare, utilities, education, infrastructure, social safety nets, you need those things as a PREREQUISITE to participation in the market. The market can’t provide its own prerequisites. If you don’t provide these things you simply cannot have a competitive free market in the first place.
I always assumed it was impossible for a free market to exist in healthcare. One important tenant of a free market is being able to freely enter and exit the market at will. Exiting the healthcare market is impossible. You can’t reasonably choose to leave the market when life is forcing you to engage in it, or choosing to leave the market would lead to death. It’s the equivalent of having a gun put to your head.
Exactly. To me all the basics of life, the bottom tiers of Maslow’s pyramid can’t be privatised. Healthcare, utilities, education, infrastructure, social safety nets, you need those things as a PREREQUISITE to participation in the market. The market can’t provide its own prerequisites. If you don’t provide these things you simply cannot have a competitive free market in the first place.
The main issue with healthcare, imo, is that it is a leonine contract. Because of that, it is incompatible with capitalism.