Reality Is Not Optional
12 July 2007
The Editor, New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036
To the Editor:
Demanding a single-payer health-care system, Celina Su announces that her "health is not a consumer good" (Letters, July 12).
Ms. Su can call her health whatever she pleases, but changing the way health care is funded can never free us from the need to ration health care somehow. The resources necessary to supply medical treatments are scarce. These resources can be rationed through market mechanisms (which I prefer) or through bureaucratic mandates, but always there will be some health-care desires that go unmet. The notion that a single-payer system will create for Americans "an embarrassment of health care riches" is infantile.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
The Editor, New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036
To the Editor:
Demanding a single-payer health-care system, Celina Su announces that her "health is not a consumer good" (Letters, July 12).
Ms. Su can call her health whatever she pleases, but changing the way health care is funded can never free us from the need to ration health care somehow. The resources necessary to supply medical treatments are scarce. These resources can be rationed through market mechanisms (which I prefer) or through bureaucratic mandates, but always there will be some health-care desires that go unmet. The notion that a single-payer system will create for Americans "an embarrassment of health care riches" is infantile.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Posted by Don Boudreaux on
Tuesday February 12, 2008 at 12:17pm