Healthcare doesn’t lend itself to the Free Market

Healthcare in the United States is big business, and that’s a big problem. We spend around 16% of our GDP on healthcare, nearly double that of other industrialized nations. Additionally our system does not provide coverage for all Americans, and our life expectancy falls below other developed nations as well. For the amount of money we’re spending on healthcare, we aren’t getting a very good bang for our buck. So what’s our remedy? A healthy dose of preventive care.

As Americans, we tend to believe the free market will solve our problems better than the government can. And with some pretty inefficient government programs in our past, I agree sometimes. The problem however is that our current system is failing to deliver what it should, so we need to figure out a solution. There’s a fundamental divide between people who believe healthcare is a birthright and those who believe healthcare is just like any other good or service and should be priced/sold accordingly. To the latter, I applaud your libertarian ideals, but I also chuckle. Although Americans largely fund their healthcare directly, through insurance, or through the government, some people cannot afford coverage. And while these people do not get flu shots or go in for annual checkups, they can get very sick and receive hospital treatment that they cannot afford and won’t pay back. So while some people currently believe our healthcare system promotes capitalist ideals, everyone already has access to healthcare (however clumsy the arrangement).

A chief issue with our current healthcare arrangement is that many medical issues-and the resulting expenses-are considered tomorrow’s problems, not today’s. While this saves money in the moment, no strategy can prove more costly in the long run. A simple yearly checkup might supplant the need for hospitalization later. So instead of providing hospitals as an unaffordable last-resort, we need a system that allows all people to receive non-emergency treatment. Through providing non-emergency treatment for all Americans, more illnesses will be treated earlier and at a lower cost to society.

Although I doubt the American healthcare system is likely to drastically change in the near future, we need to attempt to provide more low cost medical services to more people, regardless of the distribution method. This is one way in which we can save money (down the road) and provide more efficient medical care to all Americans.