The Proximal Tubule

If I had to make a wild guess, our health care system will be paid for by explicit or implicit public funds at a rate of 65-70%. My question is this: if we have a nationalized health care system now, and that system is by your estimation broken, is more nationalization the way to go? Especially when every other sector or industry in this country is privately funded and avoids this problem. Except, that is, for education and the military. Oh, yeah, they're publically funded, too.

A far more accurate "bottom-up" approach suggests that the total cost of health services regulation exceeds $339.2 billion. This figure takes into account regulation of health facilities, health professionals, health insurance, drugs and medical devices, and the medical tort system, including the costs of defensive medicine. Moreover, this approach allows for a calculation of some important tangible benefits of regulation. Yet even after subtracting $170.1 billion in benefits, considerable, amounting to $169.1 billion annually. In other words, the costs of health services regulation outweigh benefits by two-to-one and cost the average household over $1,500 per year.

More specific papers are linked to here. Looking at those papers, my guess is that the authors have under-estimated the cost of regulation. For example, I do not think that the work on professional accreditation and licensure captures the rigidities in the system imposed by regulation (prohibiting substitution), or the cost of rent-seeking as professional associations lobby for special favors.

Guither's article just made me despair a little. If the Ku Klux Klan gives your campaign money, you give it back. If an Al-Qaeda-linked "charity" gives you money, you give it back. Do these politicians really put drug legalization into the same category as racism and terrorism? Do these people actually see Pete Guither's views, Pete Guither's values, my values, as so abhorrent that they don't even want our money? That they slander and libel us?

The annual median number of deaths is 1137, of which 85% are over 65, and 2% are 15 or younger. About 10 infants a year die from influenza, which is probably comparable to the death rate among infants from lightning strikes. Also worth noting is that in the most at-risk population, those 85+, deaths from influenza account for 2.2 per 100,000 of population.

While many Americans search in vain for flu shots, members and employees of Congress are able to obtain them quickly and at no charge from the Capitol's attending physician, who has urged all 535 lawmakers to get the vaccines even if they are young and healthy.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.), a heart surgeon, sent letters urging his 99 colleagues to get the shots because they mingle and shake hands with so many people, his spokeswoman, Amy Call, said. She said she did not know how many senators have taken his advice.

Eisold "is a big believer that members of Congress are at high risk, because they shake hands with a lot of people" and then visit veterans centers and other concentrations of susceptible people, his spokesman said. Because lawmakers can be both victims and spreaders of flu, he said, Eisold urged all 535 to get the shots.

The news that some medical supply wholesalers are price gouging the flu vaccine probably shouldn't come as a surprise, human nature being what it is. But I doubt the practice is as widespread as the media reports are making it sound. I, for one, haven't received a single fax offering flu vaccine. And the offices and drug stores in our area who have the vaccine seem to be acting responsibly by only giving it to those who are at high risk. At the original price.

He also could have denounced the price gouging of flu shots which is going on in some parts of the country, but knowledge about the true costs of things to the typical American may be too much to expect from the Boy in the Bubble.

Shame on the people who are price gouging," said Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "There's no room for this kind of behavior in an environment where we need to pull together as a country to protect our vulnerable populations.

But lectures like these, asking us to pull together or do the right thing, work best in small close communities or families. In a large nation, high prices do the lecturing more effectively. It's not perfect. Some poor people will also get discouraged from buying and we might want public or voluntary measures to help them out. But when we hold prices down artificially or by social pressure or by threat of government prosecution for price gouging, there are costs born today and tomorrow. By not allowing people to profit from setting some supply aside for a crisis, we discourage people from taking such risks in the future.

...Every time we hold prices down, we make such shortages more likely in the future.

Hold the phone! You mean to say that government purchasing of vaccines at a forced discount has something to do with this? Could these be the mysterious "business reasons" that cause some companies to underproduce vaccines?

I'm shocked. Shocked, I say.

I suppose to anyone who was paying attention when this measure went into place and had a bit of economic sense about them, this is old news. And frankly, the point has been made before. I just think it's worth bringing up again. And again and again until people start to see the connection between government driven health care and undersupply of goods.

Imagine, now, that the government were to do the same thing for x-ray machines, painkillers, MRIs, nurses, obstetricians, and just about everything else. Government need not be the "provider" of health care to make lives worse. It need only be the majority purchaser, dictating prices to companies and potential doctors. Even with a second-tier in the system for those people who want to shell out money themselves for better care (though I have problems with people paying twice and getting one service), imagine the disparity in health care treatment between those who can pay and have access to the advanced care, and those who have to wait in lines hoping their heart murmer isn't something serious. How many doctors are going to choose to participate in the socialized system?

These shortages, that extend well beyond flu shots into treatments for preventable diseases in children are directly caused by government action.

Maybe regulation not only causes crime, it makes people sick, too.

People expecting children can choose a pre-approved name from a government list of 7,000 mostly Western European and English names - 3,000 for boys, 4,000 for girls. A few ethnic names, like Ali and Hassan, have recently been added. But those wishing to deviate from the official list must seek permission at their local parish church, where all newborns' names are registered. A request for an unapproved name triggers a review at Copenhagen University's Names Investigation Department and at the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs, which has the ultimate authority. The law only applies if one of the parents is Danish.

Many parents do not realize how difficult it can be to get a name approved by the government. About 1,100 names are reviewed every year, and 15 percent to 20 percent are rejected, mostly for odd spellings. Compound surnames, like Tan-Farnsden, also pose a problem.

Parents who try to be creative by naming their child Jakobp or Bebop or Ashleiy (three recent applications) are typically stunned when they are rejected. In some cases, a baby may go without an officially approved name for weeks, even months, making for irate, already sleep-deprived, parents.