Pearlstein on health care

I do like Steven Pearlstein's columns in WashPost. He lays out the facts, sets out issues clearly, and explains what needs to done, and he does all this concisely and persuasively. Here's a recent one on health care:

With Health Care, First Fix Terms of Engagement
By Steven Pearlstein
Wednesday, January 18, 2006; D01

extracts:

In the coming weeks, President Bush intends to initiate a long-overdue national debate on what do about health care. The sector represents 16 percent of the economy and is growing twice as fast as the incomes of the people who pay for it. Even at that level of spending, however, 40 million Americans have no health insurance at all, while the health of those who do is worse than in many other industrialized countries where spending is considerably lower. If we don't fix it, the health care "system" will render U.S. businesses uncompetitive, require huge increases in taxes and eventually bankrupt the country.

The White House line that we need to get government out of the health care business, or that we'd have better, cheaper health care from an unregulated market, is not only nonsense. It is also the kind of ideologically charged rhetoric that will immediately ensure that Democrats oppose anything that follows it.

Government -- in the form of Medicare, Medicaid and insurance coverage for employees and veterans -- already pays half of the nation's health bill.

Moreover, we know that by its nature, health care is a highly imperfect market.

It suffers from tremendous "information asymmetries" between sellers (doctors, hospitals and insurers) and buyers (patients).

It is rife with what economists call "principal-agent problems" -- like the doctor who benefits financially by providing more medical treatment than patients need, or health insurers that are always trying to get them to consume less.

In rural areas, there are often few providers and little or no competition.

And left alone, insurance markets will tend to lower costs for the young and healthy and raise them for the sick and aged -- an outcome that is as socially unacceptable as it is economically efficient.

We know from behavioral economics that people are particularly irrational about health care risks, with a tendency to overconsume, overpay and over-insure.

So, please, let's dispense with the free market, personal choice rhetoric. Economically, its inappropriate. Politically, its just stupid. It didn't work with Social Security and -- trust me on this one -- it really won't work with health care.

That doesn't mean there aren't ill-advised government policies that need fixing.

Both economic theory and recent experience tell us that "universality" is an economic necessity. In a competitive marketplace, the sick and poor tend to be priced out of the system while an increasing number of employers and healthy workers try to free-ride by getting others to pay for their emergency-room care.

Just as important, universality is a political necessity. Leave it out and you can be sure that Democrats will mau-mau the issue and refuse to participate in the discussion. On the other hand, include it as a central purpose of health care reform and Democrats will have no choice but to join in.