RATIONING MEDICAL CARE

Every Monday night several of my friends and I have a “Boys Night Out.” It usually entails dinner and conversation over a wide range of topics. On a recent evening the subject moved to a discussion of the “US Health Care Crisis”. Several of the participants were also in the health care field. In fact, if we consider my own past employment in the Medical Insurance Industry to be in the field, only one person was not a current or past participant in the health care system.

When all of the discussion was done, it appeared that the main argument against a government plan was that it would lead to rationing. This is the same argument that President Bush has been using for the past seven years. The problem is that people fail to realize that we do have medical care rationing today. It is one of the fundamental principles of economics that the price mechanism serves as a method of rationing goods and services. Those who can afford the goods and services and are willing to pay for them get them.

Health Care, as a service, is subject to this same principle. However, the existence of health insurance changes the underlying rationing to those who can afford the service and those who have adequate health insurance. Those who cannot afford the service or, in this case, who don’t have adequate health insurance do are “Rationed Out” of the health care market.

So when the President and his cronies shout out their war cry: “DO YOU WANT YOUR HEALTH CARE RATIONED”? You can reply: “IT ALREADY IS!”