Government Solutions, Price Controls

There has been a lot said and argued about medical care reform these days. Most of the arguments have centered around the costs involved to the patient. When the argument centers around this issue then the first thing people need to see is that it will end up being a debate based upon emotion rather than reason. This plays into the hands of the socialist. When he can keep it an argument of emotion rather than reason the socialist will always win the argument.


When you argue from the point of the cost to the consumer of a service then you are speaking of the price of that service. How does any government, regardless of type of government, solve the problem of high prices for anything? The only answer a socialist will give you is that government needs to control the price of those products or services. And that is exactly the intent and purpose of the public option, price controls.

And as any good economist will tell you, once you attempt to control prices you upset the balance of the law of supply and demand in favor of demand. And once there is greater demand than supply, what happens then? The only answer I can come up with is that the supply will not be able to meet demand and that leads to disaster especially if that supply is a service. And in this case, that service deals with the very lives of people. And it affects the very idea of a competitive market.  that is Economics 101.

The Medicare program is proof that price control is not the solution to the problem. This program uses price control as the solution to the high costs of medical care to its participants. As large of a program that it is it has not affected the controlling of the cost of medical care at all. Some might even be able to argue that this giant program is one of the causes of the high costs of medical care. It could be argued that the medical profession needs to charge a higher price to the private sector in order to offset the losses sustained from the lower payments by the public sector.

If government really wanted to reform the medical costs then they’d first look at how they are a part of the problem and seek solutions there. They’d look at the laws already in place that affect the costs of medical care. They’d look at the tax structure already in place that has an affect on the costs of medical care. You can’t place the blame on others if you are part of the problem and expect to come up with a solution to that problem.

But, as I have said before these are just the gripes of a man who is concerned for the health of the nation that was founded upon individual liberty and seeks not the guarantee of happiness, only the opportunity of happiness that freedom of choice allows me. I may have squandered many of those opportunities but I was never lacking in them.