The High Cost of Free Healthcare

 

One of the main concepts in introductory economic classes is that most things that people value are scarce. That's why we pay money for them, unlike air. And money is nothing more than our saved labor, services we have rendered to others in the past. In the market, we merely exchange services. 

Healthcare is no different. Doctors and medicine are scarce. That's why we pay for them. The US  suffers from an artificially large scarcity due to regulations, but even counties that offer free healthcare face scarcity. In the US, medical care is very expensive because of the artificial shortage caused by regulations and partly because we can afford it. We ration that scare resource though high prices. 

I once talked with a doctor from Scotland who asked me how much an office visit in the US cost. I told him and he called me a liar. He insisted no one would pay that much to see a doctor. Europeans have a hard time grasping how rich Americans are compared to them. If Europeans and Canadians are so much poorer than the US, how can they offer free healthcare? Have they done away with scarcity? No. They ration healthcare though long waiting times and denial of services. 

My wife has battled cancer for almost a decade and so makes regular trips to the MD Anderson Cancer center in Houston where she encounters European patients who were denied free healthcare by their government. So they chose to travel to Houston and pay for it. Medical tourism to the US from countries with free healthcare is enormous. 

I recently wrote about the problems with free medical care in Europe and Canada. I'm not defending US healthcare, which is totally controlled by the government and far from a free market system. But "free" healthcare is not as good, either. Here is more evidence of the high cost of free healthcare from Reason magazine.

Europeans and US Democrat Socialists should be able to figure this out. They prefer "free" healthcare out of envy, not because it's better. They resent anyone successful enough to be able to afford more expensive care.