David Hogberg continues his, ahem, disection of Blake Fleetwood’s Huffington Post on medical coverage (Beware: A Little Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing, Part II). Fleetwood states that several countries have single-payer systems for universal health care, most of which it turns out don’t really have true single-payer systems.
Hogberg explains for Fleetwood readers what a single-payer system is, in order to make sure we have clarity of facts:
A single-payer system is one in which one entity, usually the government, acts as the payer — it collects all taxes and pays all the expenses for health care.
If my limited experience with economics is right, this is a
monopsony. The one buyer is NOT the patient, it is the government.
Several economic papers describe the managed care insurance industry as monopsonistic - the insurer is significantly more monolithic than a doctor or a small group of doctors.
Logically, physicians and hospitals in a monopsonistic situation will react in ways that are analogous to buyers in a monopolistic system - they will seek alternate outlets for their services much as a buyer would seek alternate ways to satisfy their demand.
What is amazing in the discussions on government single-payer health systems is the absolutely topsy-turvy thinking demonstrated by the proponents of that approach. Somehow the government, which has been the brunt of all the criticism for failure to do good work in national defense, intelligence, homeland security, law, and other areas criticized by liberals, will suddenly become the most effective provider of health care services for all citizens. There won’t be any abuse of citizens, fraud or waste, misuse of information about patients, or any other complaints that would parallel the criticism in these other areas.
That just doesn’t make any sense. That would be like expecting a ravenous carnivore to not eat you if you smelled like lamb or pork, since you’ve only seen them eat beef. Not a risk worth taking if you ask me!
This whole public health proponency smells like an alternative attempt to buy votes now that the welfare vote-buying machine was essentially shut down. (h/t to Wizbang Blog)
