Should-Read: James Kwak: Health Care and John D. Rockefeller’s Dog

Should-Read: James Kwak: Health Care and John D. Rockefeller’s Dog: “Few people actually want to live in a world where health care is distributed by a free market…

…Textbook markets allocate goods and services to the people who are willing to pay the most for them—on the assumption that this maximizes social welfare. As Paul Samuelson wrote in his seminal 1948 textbook, “John D. Rockefeller’s dog may receive the milk that a poor child needs to avoid rickets Why?… Because [supply and demand] are doing what they are designed to do.” If you have a chronic illness that is likely to require $30,000 in treatment, the correct market price for your health plan is more than $30,000. That’s not a market failure; that’s the price at which a profit-seeking company should sell you a policy. But as Jacob Hacker wrote in The Great Risk Shift, “Most of us think it’s fine that some people can’t buy fancy clothing or fast cars. But most of us draw the line at basic health care”…