The Hidden Cost of Health Care


The rising cost of health care is an ongoing issue in the US, but there is a culprit that has been largely hidden during the integration of the health care bill.

For anyone to become a practicing medical physician in the US, the path is long and arduous.

The time and sacrifice to become a doctor is what commands such a high salary, but the missing component is that this process is mandated due to government licensure. The amount of time spent in college ranges from 11-14 years, and the average graduate starts their new career with a least $170,000 in student loan debt.

This time and money provides a barrier to entry for anyone wanting to practice medicine.

Once someone has gone through all the requirements to gain a license, they are effectively allowed to operate with significantly less competition than otherwise. The market is unable to sort out the good doctors from the bad doctors, since both are allowed to operate as long as they are licensed.

The licensure process makes it extremely difficult for the worst doctors to be discovered by patients.

Consumers are able to decide on the level of quality to their liking when it comes to pizza, shoes, or dog food, so why can’t health care be just the same?

To some people, the price is so important that they would gladly take the service from someone with half the education. Defenders of government licensure would in this case say that it is absolutely needed in health care to protect patients from quackery and malpractice.

The truth is that these legitimate concerns can be addressed through voluntary means of the private market.


Even with today’s licensure scheme, there is still essentially nothing to stop an individual from seeking out alternative care from any witch doctor that will agree to do business with them. With collective health care being so ingrained in modern developed nations, the average person would not be ok with an individual seeking out a radical and potentially dangerous form of alternative treatment, they would want the state to protect this person from themselves via licensure.

This doesn’t change the reality that freedom is still the right answer for this particular problem, even if the notion isn’t popular.

The state has obfuscated the issue of health care by various means of intervention for many years. Among the complexities of hospitals, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and government mandates, there is still the core of supply and demand--a buyer and a seller.

There is no fundamental reason why health care should be more complicated than selecting and purchasing a hammer in a hardware store.

The state has convinced many people that health care is too important of a service to leave in the hands of a profit-seeking private market, but the truth is that health care is a service that is too important to ever leave in the hands of the coercive monopoly known as the state.

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In my opinion the implementation of health in your country is certainly better as a developing country like my country. In my country the main problem about health is the very lack of medical staff serving the community. People generally still have low education while our population is very large. More people go to dukun than go to the doctor.

"In my opinion the implementation of health in your country is certainly better as a developing country like my country. In my country the main problem about health is the very lack of medical staff serving the community."

Interesting to hear your perspective.

The quality of health care, though, should naturally be a function of how developed the economy is.

It's kind of like:

If you're on an island with a few people and lots of grizzlies bears, the quality of health care (and all services) will be rather low.

The more developed you are, the better it gets.

So the US should and is capable of an amazing quality of care. Who knows what we would have cures for, and how cheap and affordable ordinary care would be.

Instead it's a mess, and not particularly good despite being a 1st world economy. Because people violently intervene in the market for their own gain.

Kills people to be violent.

And it's utterly sick.

...the missing component is that this process is mandated due to government licensure.

I recently had my state's licensing board send out a survey about the professionals opinions of the practice of requiring state licensure. I kicked it back to them basically saying, why stop at the state level? Many medical professionals that provide services to the geriatric population are not only forced to have these state and national licenses, but are legally forced to bill Medicare and Medicaid. This choked-out system being called "private" or "capitalist" is deceptive; thanks for adding to the attention to this fallacy.

The US medical industry is effectively a government-protected AMA guild monopoly. Laws prevent people from getting basic medicines unless they have the permission slip from the right level of medical expert. Nurses are competent to provide the vast majority of medical care without any MD signatures required except by law.

Beyond that, the insurance industry is so distorted by political involvement for the better part of a century thanks to tax laws and regulatory capture among other things that it is absurd to declare it a consequence of free markets. It's a corporate cartel, plain and simple.

I was working for a doctor once and he said that he would never want his kids to become a doctor, since just like you said, he did not start seeing money until he was over 40 years old since until then he was paying for all his schooling.

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Fully agree, i would only extend the notion of state towards pharmaceutical corporates. They are the real evil, bribing governments, bribing doctors, you know that the true cost of medicine is less than 10% of the value you pay for it?

I am living without healthcare for more than 20 years now, this step was my biggest fear towards real freedom. It is however the biggest security deception the state gave us to rip our true security (family, community) apart. I am afraid i have to admit i would not have set this step living in the US. I live in India now, 99% of my medical issues are solved with less than a dollar.

Oops, sensitive, i start ranting so quickly about this.... When i read about the situation in the US, i simply can't imagine how you guys can deal with this.

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@doitvoluntarily This is a problem that is seen in much of the world, here in my country Studying medicine is very expensive since the universities are private, in very few provinces there are state universities, another issue is paying licenses or having your own offices, is an activity that demands time and money
I take the opportunity to wish you an excellent year 2019 that brings for you and your loved ones, much happiness, peace and prosperity

The best care givers are people who learn to give care early in their careers. These people are all pushed off the tract to becoming doctors.

There is a great deal of room for improvement in health care. Unfortunately, the establishment is committed to the current system. The radical left want to freeze the current system by socializing it and the prospects for improvement is bleak.