28 April 2011
Ryan Health Care Plan’s Incentives Are All Wrong
The problem with the Ryan Plan, as interpreted by Betsy McCaughey in the April 27, 2011,WSJ, is that private health care insurance plans are driven by their ability to be profitable for the firms that offer them, not by their success in effectively maintaining, if not improving, the health of their subscribers. The market will reward those insurers who best satisfy the desires of eligible policy holders (dying old people, like me) with expensive, desperate procedures that promise a chance at extending life expectancy. Supplying these treatments will generate revenues for health care providers and insurers, while doing nothing to raise the well-being of the population at large.
Reliance on the free market will not prevent the health-care industry from bankrupting itself—take a look at the airline industry. Moreover, owing to the centrality of health to society’s essential goals it will also bankrupt the nation.
As inimical as it is to Emersonian principles of self-reliance, there may be no alternative to intervening in private decision-making when it comes to selection of life-styles. If we are to avoid financial ruin, we can no longer afford to allow businesses to encourage people to consume products or practise habits that have unintended consequences (cause collateral damage) like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and other preventable illnesses.
The problem with the Ryan Plan, as interpreted by Betsy McCaughey in the April 27, 2011,WSJ, is that private health care insurance plans are driven by their ability to be profitable for the firms that offer them, not by their success in effectively maintaining, if not improving, the health of their subscribers. The market will reward those insurers who best satisfy the desires of eligible policy holders (dying old people, like me) with expensive, desperate procedures that promise a chance at extending life expectancy. Supplying these treatments will generate revenues for health care providers and insurers, while doing nothing to raise the well-being of the population at large.
Reliance on the free market will not prevent the health-care industry from bankrupting itself—take a look at the airline industry. Moreover, owing to the centrality of health to society’s essential goals it will also bankrupt the nation.
As inimical as it is to Emersonian principles of self-reliance, there may be no alternative to intervening in private decision-making when it comes to selection of life-styles. If we are to avoid financial ruin, we can no longer afford to allow businesses to encourage people to consume products or practise habits that have unintended consequences (cause collateral damage) like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and other preventable illnesses.
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