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EXTREME_HEALTH

                                                           January 1, 2007
                                                           August 11, 2007

In the January 1, 2007 "New York Times",
Paul Krugman argued for single payer,
centralized health insurance
(once-upon-a-time known as socialized
medicine).

He argues that the American
system is evidentally much worse
than, say, the French.

He blames the
inefficiency of    But this is one of the standard
fragmentation,     arguments against free markets
etc.               in general: why have more than    The traditional answer
                   one shoe store in the mall?       is that multiple firms
Krugman does not                                     competing against each
explain why in the                                   other find efficiencies
case of health care,                                 that a single firm
competition is not                                   would skip: monopolies
lowering prices.                                     have little incentive
                                                     for improvement.
   A guess: after a certain
   point, regulation causes
   so many problems you're
   better off going all the     It's important to have
   way to centralized           real data to work with...
   control.
                                                But I find that I'd also
     If that's correct, this                    like to see it fitted into
     could be a case where the                  a coherent worldview.
     superficially reasonable
     answers involving
     middle-of-the-road
     compromises are worse than
     either extreme.



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