Economics of Health

[Clodfobble]

Well, one reason is because cars and fruitloops are voluntary, free-market purchases. The money goes straight from your pocket to the car man's pocket, and the car goes from his hands to yours. Everyone is happy. Healthcare isn't free-market spending: the money goes out of your pocket into the government's hands, then some of it is later doled out to the doctors on behalf of other people--which is good for the doctors to stay in business, to be sure, but for the original spenders, it can be hard to see how the money bought anything directly, so there's no immediate self-interest incentive to work to make more money, which is what completes the money-pot-stirring. Just stirring half of it doesn't count.

Which is not to say that I think healthcare should be a completely free-market operation. I'm just saying it can't stimulate the economy the same way other transactions do.