Can Markets cure healthcare?
- Krugman: “There are a number of successful health-care systems, at least as measured by pretty good care much cheaper than here, and they are quite different from each other. There are, however, no examples of successful health care based on the principles of the free market.”
- Cowen: “There are in fact plenty of people who buy their health care in a more or less free market setting, most of all in Latin America but all over the world… For the wealthy in Latin America these markets seem to work well. They work much less well for the poor but is that because of market failure or because these poor simply don’t have much money to spend?“
Is adverse selection a problem?
- Krugman: Yes, because “[Insurance companies] try to avoid covering people who are actually likely to need care.”
- Cowen: The uninsured are actually healthier than the insured.
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Thanks in advance.
Cowen is really being disingenuous here. He doesn’t have to go to Latin America, he can find rich people in the US with good health care, Krugman said “systems” ie., he’s concerned about everyone. Cowen has about as much concern for others here as Ayn Rand.
I’m not sure where Cowen’s coming up with his numbers about health, but since old people in the US have Medicare, I would think that would skew the data. A lot of young males don’t have health care, and they are healthier that the typical old person, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want it. When I was a young male, I remember being concerned about getting into an accident and not being able to pay. For young males, the problem is they wind up subsidizing everyone else and can’t afford to.