The Problem With Academia

On NPR yesterday the morning show host interviewed yet another Ivy League professor on the merits of health care reform, under the accepted premise that not only is it inevitable but absolutely necessary. At one point in the discussion the professor made the statement that the prime motivator needs to be cost reduction, as recent history has shown a dramatic increase in the average cost of care per capita in this country.

If he had stopped there I could have agreed with him - the evidence is overwhelming, and on the face of it a person with lackluster deductive ability and a bug in his ear might assume that this is some sort of effort on the part of the industry to gouge customers. Such was the professor's premise. He continued that without reform and government controls, costs would continue to escalate and become cost prohibitive for anyone but the super rich.

This point of view is obnoxious and demonstrates again that those mired in establishment academia have little contact or concept of the real world outside. The obvious problem with his argument is that health care is a private sector business entity, not some monster that exists to consume wealth. As I detailed in my very first post, Organizations in the business of health care exist to make money, and although it may seem to someone who's health care is paid for by the same Americans he turns his nose up at that that goal is accomplished by continually raising prices without regard to its customers ability to pay, that's simply not how successful businesses operate.

Health care providers must balance prices against costs while tip-toeing the line on government regulations and requirements unique to its sector. Its a herculean task, and many of these businesses do fail. But if a hospital increased prices just for the sake of making more profit, they would quickly price out many of their customers, who would then find a less expensive source for similar services.

THAT'S HOW CAPITALISM WORKS!

I know this is hard for most of academia to understand, but it is regulation and government interference limiting competition that leads to out of control costs and price inflation. If we could roll back a substantial amount of the taxes that get funneled through the health care sector and which escalate cost, and then charge people based on need instead of what's fair (with some easily identifiable exceptions), the average cost of health care would be lower, and the mean would be substantially less.

If 95% of health care costs are accrued by the elderly and the overweight, then why do I need to support people who either planned poorly during their lives or led a self-destructive lifestyle. That's the real problem, so call a like it is; old is old and fat is fat, and they can figure out for themselves whether they can afford the treatments they need to live or let live, but leave my paycheck out of it.

There's your thesis, professor.