Milton

I was reading some articles in the imprimis archives and came across an interview with Milton Friedman. It caught my eye because he died on November 16 so I thought I'd see what he said in one of his last published interviews.

Some of you may know I was on a "socialized health care is a bad deal" kick a few months ago and, lo and behold, I found that Milton in answering this question made my point much better!

Let me preface this with our health insurance story. TD has been self-employeed for 23 years so TD provides health care for his family. We have a BCBS plan with a $5,250 yearly deductible. We pay almost $8,000 per year for that crappy (by most US standards) policy. This is not an HMO, so in addition, we pay all medical costs until we reach the deductible (which we never do). Also, our last three children were "cash" babies since the medical portion only covered complicated pregnancies.

Remember that Office episode where Dwight was cutting the health insurance? Well, the policy at TD Design has worse coverage. : )

Here is my point. When you are paying for something yourself, you watch the costs. When you are personally buying your own health care, you decide that it is "insurance". Just like when you buy life insurance, you are not planning on dying...it's a worse case senario plan. In other words, when you buy health care insurance, you are banking on staying well, so want coverage that will take care of you in case you get REALLY sick.

But, now, everyone thinks having all their health care paid for is a right that the government should provide. Of course, "the government" is me and you. Tell me why I should be required to buy something for someone else that I do not even buy for myself?

Of course there are situations where people are "caught". That should be the role for the caring Christians, but they have less money to spend helping others because of the out of control spending by Uncle Sam.

End of rant. Here's Milton's answer (LA is the interviewer):

LA: Is there an area here in the United States in which we have not been as aggressive as we should in promoting property rights and free markets?

MF: Yes, in the field of medical care. We have a socialist-communist system of distributing medical care. Instead of letting people hire their own physicians and pay them, no one pays his or her own medical bills. Instead, there's a third party payment system. It is a communist system and it has a communist result. Despite this, we've had numerous miracles in medical science. From the discovery of penicillin, to new surgical techniques, to MRIs and CAT scans, the last 30 or 40 years have been a period of miraculous change in medical science. On the other hand, we've seen costs skyrocket. Nobody is happy: physicians don't like it, patients don't like it. Why? Because none of them are responsible for themselves. You no longer have a situation in which a patient chooses a physician, receives a service, gets charged, and pays for it. There is no direct relation between the patient and the physician. The physician is an employee of an insurance company or an employee of the government. Today, a third party pays the bills. As a result, no one who visits the doctor asks what the charge is going to be—somebody else is going to take care of that. The end result is third party payment and, worst of all, third party treatment.