Statists frequently point to skyrocketing healthcare costs as a "failure of the free market", when nothing could be further from the truth. There is no free market in healthcare (in the US in particular, and probably not in any other country either); healthcare is an extremely over-regulated market. "ObamaCare" (the "patient affordable care act") does not address any of the fundamental problems; but it does make things worse by, among other things, requiring insurers to cover pre-existing conditions, the equivalent of forcing insurers to sell a life insurance policy for the dead or a home insurance policy for a home destroyed by a tornado at regular rates.
Some relevant articles:
The Economics of US Healthcare - how the redistributionist systems are bankrupt; individual costs vs. income; the lie of "insurance", insurable events; licensure; impact of patents on costs.
What's Really Wrong with the Healthcare Industry - "There are four major causes of rising prices in the healthcare market, and in every case government intervention has either directly caused or greatly exacerbated the problem."
- employer provision of healthcare insurance (leads to price insensitivity)
- licensure (reduces supply of doctors etc., leads to higher prices)
- obesity epidemic (10% of healthcare costs, due to state subsidy of corn-based sweeteners)
intellectual property (patents on drugs, medical technology: state violence preventing innovation)
Socialized Healthcare vs. the Laws of Economics - how socialized healthcare really works in Canada, etc.: vastly higher costs, shortages, long waits for care.
And for those that say proponents of a free society have no solutions (as if "take the state's foot off people's necks", "put out the fire", and "take away the gun" aren't solutions…), A Four-Step Healthcare Solution:
- Eliminate state licensing requirements (allow for voluntary certification instead);
- Eliminate restrictions on same and production of pharmaceutical products and medical technology (no more FDA or patents);
- De-regulate the health insurance industry—allow it to be insurance (against insurable events) rather than redistribution; don't force coverage of pre-existing conditions; allow for high-deductible catastrophic event coverage plans;
Eliminate subsidies to the sick and unhealthy: subsidizing something encourage it.
How Medical Boards Nationalized Healthcare - by joining with the state to produce medical cartels.
See also: