Liberty Maven

If we listen to the proponents of Obamacare, you’d be led to believe that we have a failing free-market health care system.  If you listen to most of the opponents of Obamacare, you’d be led to believe we have a failing free-market health care system.  As Shikha Dalmia, Senior Analyst of the Reason Foundation points out, as long as this myth continues to be so pervasive we have no chance of getting the government out of the “solution” business.  In fact, our system isn’t radically different from what Europeans have.

How did his plan for a government takeover of roughly a fifth of the U.S. economy get this far in the first place?

The answer is not that Democrats have a lock on Washington right now–although they do. Nor that Republicans are intellectually bereft–although they are. The answer is that both ObamaCare’s supporters and opponents believe that–unlike Europe–America has something called a free market health care system. So long as this myth holds sway, it will be exceedingly difficult to prescribe free market fixes to America’s health care woes–or, conversely, end the lure of big government remedies.

The fact of the matter is that America’s health care system is like a free market in the same way that Madonna is like a virgin–i.e. in fiction only. [Continue reading]