[Peace-discuss] a critique of american medicine and the flexner report

[Stuart Levy]

On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 03:51:38AM +0800, E.Wayne Johnson wrote:
> My contention has long been that one of the primary problems with medical
> care in the USA is that there are too few providers and that the number of
> health care providers is held low artificially by the deceit of the AMA.  I
> have suggested a drastic loosening of the standards to promote more
> providers.  There havent been many takers for my notions, but here someone
> examines the history of medicine and the Flexner report and the fake reform
> of Obama and Co.
>
> http://mises.org/daily/4276

Actually, economist Dean Baker agrees with you on this -- at least that
US medical providers are deliberately being kept scarce, and that
this raises the cost of medical care.  He's said a number of times
that any consistent supporter of free trade should oppose this highly
protectionist policy.

Baker also promotes medical tourism as a way to provide competition
to the overpriced US system, though I'm uneasy with this.
It seems as though it would entice medical tourist destinations'
providers to flock to (likely better-paying) private tourist clinics,
at the expense of their own domestic medical systems.


There are some pretty half-baked things in this Mises article though.
For-profit hospitals have better incentives than nonprofit ones
to control costs?  Not in our system, where costs and effectiveness
are not transparent.  Insurance of routine procedures leads to
overuse of services?  Has the author never heard of the effectiveness
of preventive care, or the value of public health measures?

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