November 05, 2007

The august Los Angeles Times ran an article Sunday by Charles Ornstein on his efforts to help his Mom pick a plan for her Medicare health care and prescription drug benefits, from among the thousands of Medicare Advantage plans and Medigap plans and Part D options and combinations available. The plans are characterized by significant differences in coverages, premiums, co-payments, and all the other attributes that collectively make up health insurance products for seniors.

Ornstein's exasperation is clear given the task of sorting through all the options to find the best one for his Mom. What is clear as well is the utter failure of both him and, as usual, the LA Times to see the forest for the trees: Thousands of options are available because the market---unlike the Beltway---understands and has incentives to respond to the myriad differences in preferences and conditions shaping the health-care choices of millions of American seniors. Would Ornstein be happier with one choice? Well, perhaps, if that choice just happened to be the one fulfilling his Mom's needs most fully. But what are the odds of that?

Ornstein is not alone in his failure to understand that the hassle of sorting through the offerings of the market are nothing compared with the hassle of dealing with government policies and agency bureaucrats who do not have customers to satisfy, and so whose central incentive is to cut budget costs. Would Ornstein be more pleased with a bureaucracy that simply will not spend dollars on given medical services for people older than, say, 75? Don't bet on it. But do bet on that very kind of outcome as a result of socialized health-care finance, if the U.S. ever is sufficiently misguided to adopt such a monstrosity.

Posted by Benjamin Zycher at November 5, 2007 12:30 PM

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