by Rick Lowe
How can anyone deny the benefits of a free market?
Today the average Bahamian citizen can sleep and drive in air conditioned comfort, use washing machines instead of hand washing clothes watch cable television and eat foods from around the globe, all at reasonable prices as a result of free markets and globalization.
Now contrast this with the lifestyle of people in countries that are less free than ours. Say Cuba for example. How about many of the Arab countries that are ruled by dictators and despots where they cannot pull themselves up by the boot straps to enjoy the benefits that capitalism delivers.
And with each passing year we cede more and more of our freedom, to, as Dr. Milton Friedman noted "…the men of good intentions and good will who wish to reform us. Impatient with the slowness of persuasion and example to achieve the great social changes they envision, they are anxious to use the power of the state to achieve their ends and confident in their own ability to do so. Yet if they gained power, they would fail to achieve their immediate aims and, in addition, would produce a collective state from which they would recoil in horror and of which they would be among the first victims. Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it."
A case in point is the present course the PLP government is on to nationalize the health care industry and remove our freedom to choose who our insurer will be. The propaganda being espoused now by the Minister of Health, Dr. Bernard Nottage, is that the country is too small to have more than one health insurance company for their nationalized plan. When it suits a politicians circumstances, we can be as powerful as America and the next we are too small to have a competitive market. Go figure?
To quote Dr. Friedman again from his 1962 classic, Capitalism and Freedom, when he alludes to the fact that mankind will be able to "preserve and extend freedom," he implores that we can only do so "if we persuade our fellow men that free institutions offer a surer, if perhaps at times a slower, route to the ends they seek than the coercive power of the state."
Politics usually trumps common sense and sound economics, but we can all do our part by calling Dr. Nottage to let him know we are all capitalists at heart and prefer the free market to provide our health care needs.
Another point to consider is that Dr. Nottage and the Blue Ribbon Commission have been suggesting that the greedy doctors and insurers only have their self-interest at heart and we should trust him to design the perfect health plan.
Well why should we believe that Dr. Nottage is any less self-interested than the rest of us? Do you think it’s possible that he (a politician) would implement a plan that would not fail? If you do, I ask you to consider the present state of education and the sustained losses at BahamasAir and the present level of service at the Princess Margaret Hospital, all caused by political influence.
As Russell Roberts points out in his blog Glaeser on Paternalism at Cafe Hayek "I find the idea of the State looking out for my interest deeply disturbing. First, government intervention invariably crowds out private activities that might help me make better decisions. And given that there is no such thing as "the government," inevitably, a complex set of political forces come into play that result in some political outcome rather than what might in a perfect world, be in my own interest. That is, it’s meaningless to say "the government will make that decision better than I can." There is no actor/decision maker/thinker/parent involved, just the inevitable interplay of special interests and self-interested politicians. And as Glaeser points out, if I as a decision maker am prone to mistakes why are politicians immune from these same imperfections?"
Need I say more?
Further reading:
On the free market see this article by Brink Lindsey at Opinion Journal from the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page titled Poor-Mouthing Prosperity.
Click here for information on Brink Lindsey.
On economic logic in health care see Bastiat vs. Krugman by Professor Donald Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek.
Rick
I appreciate your political opposition to nationalized healthcare. But I wonder if you do not undermine the integrity of your argument by suggesting that the Bahamian government’s Blue Ribbon Commission healthcare plan would set the country on a course towards emulating Cuba and Arab dictatorships. (Especially since, by all objective criteria, citizens in these countries enjoy excellent healthcare, notwithstanding their relatively impoverished living conditions.)
More to the point, however, is it not the case that Dr Nottage is attempting to emulate plans that provide comprehensive and affordable healthcare to all citizens in countries like Canada, England and Switzerland?
Moreover, you imply that this nationalized plan would preclude access to private, market oriented plans. But surely that is not the case, is it?
Thanks Anthony:
I think you have been taking in too much Cuban propaganda about their health care system. Have you visited there to see what it’s like?
This article might provide some insight: http://www.nassauinstitute.org/wmview.php?ArtID=354
That aside, the bottom line is the BRC, as presently envisioned, will eliminate choice and institute price controls.
Not sound economic principles by any stretch of the imagination.
As you raised Canada, Britian and Switzerland, I’m wondering if you have had an opportunity to review their current status? The Canadian and British systems in particular are crumbling and people are having to go to other countries to speed up their treatment and in many instances they die while waiting to be diagnosed and/or treated.
The Nassau Institute commissioned a study that offers sensible alternatives to a government takeover of health care, but we cannot even get a meeting with the PM to present it to him.
See this article: http://www.nassauinstitute.org/wmview.php?ArtID=612
This country can ill afford the proposals we have seen to date. Not to mention the fact that the government refuses to release the data it used to come up with its recommendations.
Transparency at its finest!
After reading the comments of Anthony Hall about Cuba and their health care I have to suspect that he is receiving different information than I do and we are not reading the same books.
Those people who are prepared to go to Cuba with American dollars may or may not recieve adequate care but most certainly their own citizens receive very sub-standard care “go home and pray about it” is a standard prescription.
Further, Mr. Hall needs to check the recent reports on the failing State health care systems in Canada, Switzerland and England.
Certainly not something that we want in the Bahamas.