[afro-nets] Markets for Healthcare: the unending debate (2)

[George Kent <kent@hawaii.edu>]

Markets for Healthcare: the unending debate (2)
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(1) For your information, the Cato Institute has published a
book with a comparable argument: "Healthy Competition: What's
Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It", by Michael F. Can-
non. I am not endorsing; I am only letting you know it is out
there.

(2) How can one say that arguing in favor of market-based health
care "has absolutely nothing to do with ideologies." That sounds
like market fundamentalism. To the fundamentalist, other ap-
proaches are beliefs and superstitions, while his is the truth.
Market approaches have their advantages and their disadvantages,
like all others.

(3) Any proposal for market-based health care should carefully
explain how the very poor will be accommodated. I assume that
some non-market mechanisms are needed to compensate for the fact
that markets inherently tend to neglect the interests of the
poor.

Aloha, George Kent
mailto:kent@hawaii.edu