This podcast, EconTalk, welcomed a guest speaker, Keith Smith who is an anesthesiologist that opened a center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma that welcomes individuals that possibly do not have or cannot afford health insurance. This hospital center also bridges the gap when individuals need routine surgeries but are on long waitlists. This hospital that Smith opened is entrepreneurial because in brings value to patients at a lower price which then increases the consumer profit.
Smith's hospital brings healthcare to people in need while simultaneously keeping keeping the government and insurance companies out of the process which lowers prices for consumers and in general. Prices stem from cost of resources alone in this free market healthcare center without the extra money that must be paid to government and insurance institutions.
I think this concept and practice of free market healthcare is interesting for a couple of reasons. One of the first things that is interesting to me does not relate to entrepreneurship, but it interests me because it is based in Oklahoma. The focus on this uncommon type of healthcare is a state that is relatively small in population is very cool, especially being from the state.
The biggest thing I find interesting about Smith's hospital is the price that it offers to patients. This is largely due to the fact that it does not have any ties to insurance companies. Often, people are unable to get necessary procedures because they are unable to afford them. Not being able to offer all of society basic needs such as medical care is a fault in today's world, and normalizing Smith's form of free market healthcare would make leaps in solving this problem.
I can draw a tie between the ripples in this form of healthcare market, just as we have been discussing in class. We have been discussion the seen and the unseen effects that happen each time a consumer makes a decision in the market, and this draws parallels in healthcare as well. In the instance of free market healthcare, the "seen" element would be a patient without insurance utilizing the center and paying for the service. The ripple effect of this money then goes to the center, the surgeons, and the suppliers of the resources needed to finish the surgery. The unseen effects of this can be seen in healthcare that involves government and insurance agencies. In this case, the uninsured patient would go without the needed surgery and instead use the money elsewhere. This might not be the most beneficial for the individual, but the value of spending money elsewhere is of greater importance to the individual then spending the money on the surgery.
This instance of the seen and the unseen based on different types of healthcare is, in many ways, interwoven with society. One one hand, government and insurance puts regulations in place for their own profit and benefit. The flip side of this is that some individuals in society are literally unable to fulfill their needs because of the expenses. Society is a double sided battle in the healthcare industry, and the way that Smith uses his degree, networking, and resources to provide healthcare to uninsured individuals and ones that are unable to access critical surgeries is something that society should think about as making the new norm.