Subsidization of US Health Care

The Economy and U.S. Health Care
Contemporary transformations are fundamentally challenging the U.S. health care system. This can be seen, for example, in the way our economy today is impacting health care. The mixed-market economy is steadily shifting more and more towards a command economy in which all resources are controlled by centralized authorities; indeed, this has been the case for decades (Manibot, 1998). The latest explicit indication, of course, has been the “rescue” too-big-to-fails and the markets in general through the Fed’s “unconventional monetary policy” (Heller, 2017). But there are many other examples, as well, of privatized profits and socialized losses—and the U.S. government’s willingness to subsidize just about anything has transformed what was once upon lauded as a free market into a very centrally planned economy.
This transformation is very impactful on the health care community in the U.S. because it moves the practice of health care away from private hands and places it increasingly under the control of public hands—i.e., governmental and bureaucratic systems. The efficiency (or inefficiency) of these systems may be disputed, but one noticeable outcome is that whenever government gets involved, especially in the subsidizing game, prices go up. This can be seen in everything from education (the U.S. government subsidizes student loans and guarantees them, which allows schools—knowing that demand is there—to raise prices) to housing (same story) to health care (where the narrative is repeated). Indeed, because health care providers are incentivized by government to treat rather than prevent illness, the entire industry is corrupted through the subsidizing of treatment care, when preventive care is really what should be seen (Goldhill, 2009).
Thus, instead of health care providers placing more emphasis on preventive the spread or onset of certain problems—like obesity—providers in the health care industry place more emphasis on treating the symptoms. Instead of communicating the need for individuals to exercise better judgment about diet and nutrition, they focus on providing patients with products created by the pharmaceutical industry. This allows one industry to enable another industry to profit, and kickbacks are the reward of the former. The patient, meanwhile, does not receive the kind of quality care that he should receive because the providers and the pill producers collude (along with the subsidizing government) to ensure that there is no collapse in demand.
If subsidies were taken away, the many tests and procedures and prescriptions given to patients by health care providers would disappear from practice (Goldhill, 2009). Because they would not be getting reimbursed by the government (and because most people are not willing to pay out of pocket for tests or procedures they don’t need), providers would adopt a different approach to health care—one that is more in line with their Hippocratic Oath: they would adopt a preventive care approach.
Preventive care would enable people to live lives that are healthier for them from the get-go instead of rushing to health care providers for treatment after years of neglecting or abusing their health through poor diet, lack of exercise, or other activities. Were the economy allowed to work freely (as a free market should work) without the intervention of government, the entire health care industry would change for the better. The command economy characteristics that are evident in the industry would be gone, and patients and providers would be able to meet on a more honest level. But since the government is keen on backstopping all industries, health care has changed for the worse.
References
Goldhill, D. (2009). How American health care killed my father. The Atlantic.
Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/how-american-health-care-killed-my-father/307617/
Heller, R. (2017) Monetary mischief and the debt trap. Cato Journal, 37(2), 247-261.
Manibot, G. (1998). America’s command economy. Retrieved from
http://www.monbiot.com/1998/03/05/americas-command-economy/