Positive Liberty

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free. — P. J. O’Rourke

The New York Times today runs another of its current series of economic Dog Bites Man stories “examining how businesses and investors [ohmygawd!] seek to profit from the soaring number of older Americans, in ways helpful and harmful.” Its most recent hard hitting exposé tracks the following bit of reasoning: Baby Boomers are entering the geriatric stage, their health is declining as a result, such ill health often necessitates reliance on oxygen equipment for which – surprise, surprise! – Medicare appears to be paying more than double the market price. Apparently, the Times actually finds newsworthy the facts that (1) aging Boomers are a rapidly growing health crisis, (2) Medicare is, in this case like just about every other case, inefficient and wasteful, and (3) oxygen equipment suppliers increasingly rely on those ‘entitled’ to a government benefits program to act as “unpaid lobbyists” to preserve the inefficient and wasteful status quo.

Trackback URI |