The healthcare solution is simple

To the Editor:

Healthcare in the U.S. is expensive because we limit who can provide care. Slow the supply of any resource and the price will rise. The resource in question is professional medical care, and it will follow the economic rules of any resource. Restrict the supply of oil, gas prices will increase. The difference is that we are allowing this resource to be restricted artificially. This has led to massive inflation in the cost of healthcare. There is, however, a simple solution. 

To illustrate the issue picture this: Your car needs a brake job. Imagine you are required by law to have it serviced by a doctor of engineering. No longer are you permitted to seek out the mechanic of your choice. What would it cost if a mechanic was forced to attend 12 years of university to fix your brakes. What if every cook and chef had to have a master’s degree in culinary arts? Imagine if wait staff were forced by law to have a bachelor’s degree in food service. What do you suppose a dinner for two would cost? Keep in mind that all of this is enforced by the full weight of law. Imagine the crushing burden of living in such a world. 

Of course there are those who would benefit greatly. They could build extraordinary wealth simply by restricting the supply of critical services. They could enrich themselves at the absolute expense of their neighbors. They could fleece the community while they build more restriction on the supply. They would have an enormous incentive to prevent any change.

This is exactly the world we have created in healthcare. We have allowed the providers of service to set their own restrictions on that service. We have allowed an industry to prevent all outside competition. This is the definition of price fixing. This has stifled efficiency and innovation in healthcare. 

There are some medical procedures that would take an intelligent person less than a day to learn. Under threat of imprisonment you may not learn, teach, or perform those procedures. You may only seek care from the “protected class”. You may only learn these procedures from the “protected class”. Protected by laws they themselves have written. And it is with those laws, that they have enriched themselves. 

This is why you wait for your doctor and your favorite chef waits for you. This is why your orthopedist is six months behind schedule while your favorite tech guy will be at your house tomorrow, if need be. This is why we close our shops, restaurants, and factories and build larger hospitals. This is why hospitals today look like the palaces of yesterday. 

The solution is simple. A free and open market for any service. Free for consumers to purchase any service from whomever they wish. Free for providers to provide any service they wish. The solution is simple.

K. Dale Boley

Van Wert

via email