From the Publisher July–August 2022
Even amidst plenty of bad news, quiet revolutions happen all around us.
No American industry is more ripe for disruption than medicine. Americans are addled; sick, overweight, mentally unwell, and dependent on too many prescription drugs. The business of “healthcare” is dominated by government—Medicare—and “private” insurance company middlemen, and it is in big trouble. Premiums and out-of-pocket costs now average $23,000 per year for a family of four. And the most expensive group of insureds, those over age sixty-five, are set to double in number by 2050.
For decades we have been told healthcare is a right, and not subject to the laws of economics. Rising prices, complexity, and insurance capture—caused by state intervention—are claimed to represent market failure. Single payer government schemes are offered as the solution, even as those systems fail disastrously in places like Canada and the UK.
Happily, the market is a powerful force and always finds a way. Heroes like Dr. G. Keith Smith of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, along with a growing number of direct primary care doctors, are eliminating the middleman and brin
Article from Mises Wire
