One regular theme in Paul Krugman’s column is universal medical care, and anyone who opposes him either is evil or simply wants people to be unhealthy. While he is not fully happy with President Barack Obama’s latest plan to create a government health insurance option, nonetheless he knows all central plans lead to government care.
Knowing the details of this latest plan is not necessary to conclude it is bad. The reason it is bad is because it operates on the impossible premise that government can force up real costs of medical care while making it cheaper and more available. In other words, President Obama and his supporters are claiming that government can lower costs when it actually is increasing them.
Normally, this is known as a fraud, but today it is politics. Let us understand what is happening and, more important, why it is happening so that we can better realize just why such fraudulent ideas gain any traction in the first place.
For politicians, it is easy. Medical care “costs” too much. Thus, the government either should establish price controls or simply control all payments to medical personnel. Krugman and other economists have been parroting that line for years, and they are correct in that medical care is more costly than it should be. However, there is a problem in the typical analysis, and that is this little issue of just what is a cost.
To the political classes and their court economists, a “cost” is a payment to individuals and organizations in the medical field. For example, if one pays $50 for a doctor visit, that is a “cost” to that person. If one pays $1,000 for a particular test, that is the “cost” to the patient.
However, that is superficial analysis. For example, Krugman has claimed that devices like CAT scans and MRIs “drive up” the cost of health care. If that were true, then it would be the first time in history that a labor-saving capital device would be responsible for making goods more costly. In both cases, a patient can quickly and bloodlessly be examined and doctors generally can gain near-pinpoint evidence of the problem.
For example, my father had knee surgery in 1966, and he was in the hospital for a week. The doctor cut a huge incision in his leg, took back a large flap of skin, and then went to work. It took Dad many months to recover.
When I had knee surgery in 2003, I came to the hospital in the early morning and left by noon. Instead of a huge scar, I had two tiny, pinprick marks on my knee, and I was at work four days later. Within a few weeks, I was hiking on a nearby mountain. Yet, according to Krugman’s logic, my father’s operation was a “lower-cost” affair. To an economist, however, my opportunity costs were much lower.
To someone like Krugman, the “cost” would be reflected solely in the medical bill, with the MRI costing one thing and the surgery something else. Somehow, had we eliminated the MRI, then the whole thing would have cost less. However, that test had shown the doctor exactly what he needed to do, which was why he was able to do it quickly, efficiently, and have me working within a few days.
The problem is not the presence of medical capital; the problem is that government has forced the use of resources when they are not needed (either for doctors to avoid lawsuits or because political authorities are demanding their use). The so-called “cost crisis” did not come about until after the passage of Medicare in 1965.
From that point on, more and more medical decisions have been made by bureaucrats, which means that medical people must devote more and more resources to filling out forms and satisfying the government. Apologists for government insist that such actions somehow lower the cost of healthcare, but “not so fast, my friend.” When government forces people in the medical fields to expend resources in areas away from medical care, it makes care less available and more costly.
