One of the biggest debates in the country is health care. For the most part, people who argue for national health care or 'socialist' health care is just want those who can't afford it, to have it. Some like my buddy Kirk here, don't like that idea because of its perceived effects.
Really, just throwing two cents in to the metaphorical fountain here, I wonder if instead of subsidizing health coverage for citizens, would that money, or money already being used for subsidization, be better used to subsidized practices of the doctors themselves. One of the problems that doctors and health clinics face is an economical one. Why practice in a depressed neighborhood when you could get paid more working in a more affluent area? We could subsidize doctors who practice in known lower income areas, which in turn would allow them to lower their prices. This would even out the health coverage gap that currently exists. Some areas have poor doctor-patient ratios while some have an overabundance.
Now to those who say that people should just suck it up and pay for their own health care, I say this: Having healthy, long-living citizens is a public good, just as important as having smart, capable people. It is the same reason we don't have people pay for roads and things themselves, because it benefits everyone for us to spread it out. Eventually everyone benefits.
while sounding much better then many proposals there are still many flaws even to this. As my favirote Economist would say this is stage one economic thinking (see his book "Applied Economics: thinking beyond stage one)
ReplyDeleteThere are several things to look into, the first of which is the actual reasons there is such a discrepency when it comes to patient/doctor ratio in low income areas.
Another thing is where would the subsidization come from? other doctors? you? me? remember a government isn't a wealth creating entity it can merely 'spread the wealth' so to speak.
You need to find out if the reasons doctors don't go to these neighborhoods. You can subsidize all you want but many will not want to take the chance of being robbed or having to deal with certain kinds of people, this is their choice of course. Subsidization is not the be all end all as politicians make it out to be.
there are many more of course but just start thinking beyond stage one. What will happen down the line? We get doctors in Low income getting subsidies so you and I have to travel to these doctors if we want a check up? How much of a subsidy will they be getting? Will this create incentives to become a doctor in America or disincentives?
If you look at almost every single government intervention it almost always hurts the people it is claiming to help.
"cleaning up the slums" by pouring government money into them inevitably leads to the housing being too expensive and the poor can't afford it, then the government stepping in with price controls which lead to shortages in the housing supply, and so on.
One thing to ALWAYS understand with these is that IF there is subsidization i.e. The government pays for it through our taxes there will always be some strings attached.
never forget.