Who made more money and became a household name around the modern world: Henry Ford or the guy who started the Rolls Royce company? (See, I have no clue who the latter is.)
Now that Obamacare has been back in the news it is a good time to consider why Ford became so rich and renowned. What's the connection? When it comes to health care we reflexively assume it is a political problem and not an economic one. Being that it is a heart an economic issue, what would be the best way to delivery affordable health care to 300+ million Americans who, presumably, actually want affordable health care?
Ford found a way to provide millions of Americans with something they wanted. He dropped the price of an automobile from $850 in 1909 to $290 in the 1920s. By "dropped the price" I mean he saw that economy of scale and selling more cars to more people would make him more money so he decreased the cost of production through greater efficiency. This profit mongering made the horseless carriage available to more and more people at a cheaper price.
Ford operated in a vastly freer and broadly less government controlled environment. Providing affordable automobiles to millions of Americans was also not a politically-charged endeavor wherein politicians demagogued the car industry at every turn and people assumed they had a "right" to not have to pay for one. There were no government subsidies, Motorcare, or Motorcaid getting in between Ford and his goal of delivering affordable and reliable Ts to his customers.
In short, Ford did not have the government stopping him from providing Americans with what they want.
For decades now the health care system has become increasingly entangled in cumbersome state and federal regulations and mandates. Add to this efficiency-killer the insurance problem: for generations Americans have become accustomed to the third party model of paying for services.
Were Ford alive today and interested in turning his time, talents, energies, and capital towards providing Americans with more affordable health care he would have a much more difficult time delivering lower costs. Actually given all the restrictions, regulations, government intervention, and insurance cartels provided by ObamaCare, he probably would not even give it a go. Government is simply in the way.
The 2,700+ page health care law that will get piled onto all this mess (What could go wrong?!) will compound the very problems that have led to unnecessarily high prices in health care: increased bureaucratization, increased governmental command, and less consumer control.
So the Republicans have symbolically repealed Obamacare in the House. That's nice, but how about publicly discussing that whole freedom in the market place thing that's worked somewhat well for us since the colonial days? In every market that is unsubsidized and not controlled through the regulatory regimes in DC, Americans enjoy affordable and quality products and services.
Milton Friedman makes the case:
Pro-freedom policies are a proactive, forward-looking approach to lowering the price of
health care. Insisting on more central planning, corporatism, and government control of our lives is a turning back of the clock to the times that predate free markets and prosperity in modern society.
We don't need to resurrect Henry Ford. We need to resurrect the free market environment in which he made his millions by lowering the costs of a product Americans desired. Now that's a progressive policy for health care.
We don't need to resurrect Henry Ford. We need to resurrect the free market environment in which he made his millions by lowering the costs of a product Americans desired. Now that's a progressive policy for health care.
