The rising cost of health care is an ongoing issue in the US, but there is a culprit that has been largely hidden during the integration of the health care bill.

For anyone to become a practicing medical physician in the US, the path is long and arduous.

The time and sacrifice to become a doctor is what commands such a high salary, but the missing component is that this process is mandated due to government licensure. The amount of time spent in college ranges from 11-14 years, and the average graduate starts their new career with a least $170,000 in student loan debt.

This time and money provides a barrier to entry for anyone wanting to practice medicine.

Once someone has gone through all the requirements to gain a license, they are effectively allowed to operate with significantly less competition than otherwise. The market is unable to sort out the good doctors from the bad doctors, since both are allowed to operate as long as they are licensed.

The licensure process makes it extremely difficult for the worst doctors to be discovered by patients.

Consumers are able to decide on the level of quality to their liking when it comes to pizza, shoes, or dog food, so why can’t health care be just the same?

To some people, the price is so important that they would gladly take the service from someone with half the education. Defenders of government licensure would in this case say that it is absolutely needed in health care to protect patients from quackery and malpractice.

The truth is that these legitimate concerns can be addressed through voluntary means of the private market.

Even with today’s licensure scheme, there is still essentially nothing to stop an individual from seeking out alternative care from any witch doctor that will agree to do business with them. With collective health care being so ingrained in modern developed nations, the average person would not be ok with an individual seeking out a radical and potentially dangerous form of alternative treatment, they would want the state to protect this person from themselves via licensure.

This doesn’t change the reality that freedom is still the right answer for this particular problem, even if the notion isn’t popular.

The state has obfuscated the issue of health care by various means of intervention for many years. Among the complexities of hospitals, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and government mandates, there is still the core of supply and demand--a buyer and a seller.

There is no fundamental reason why health care should be more complicated than selecting and purchasing a hammer in a hardware store.

The state has convinced many people that health care is too important of a service to leave in the hands of a profit-seeking private market, but the truth is that health care is a service that is too important to ever leave in the hands of the coercive monopoly known as the state.

pics:
pixabay