John Goodman On Health Care For Profit

One of the most important, but least-often discussed, elements of the health care debate.

John Goodman does a nice job addressing the importance of the profit motive in health care, a topic I also addressed earlier this year. The money quote is the last paragraph:

More to the point, you and I cannot control other people’s motives. But we can control public policies. With that in mind, it is in our interest as patients to promote institutional environments in which providers of medical care find it in their economic self-interest to deliver low-cost, high-quality care. And this is true regardless of all the many and complex factors that make up the underlying motivations of the doctors and institutional administrators who provide that care.

How does one ensure that providers of medical care find it in their economic self-interest to deliver low-cost, high-quality care? The same way we do in every other industry: by allowing consumers, wherever feasible, to choose their own health care providers and pay for their own health care. There are instances where health care deviates from normal market forces, as I discuss in the National Affairs piece hyperlinked above, but these instances occur less often than liberals think.