Living in Babylon wrote this

Living in Babylon

I just read this article today in the Seattle Times and was astonished. I've been preaching that the way to solve the whole health insurance mess is to just not have health insurance. That without health insurance, the cost of doing business for doctors would go down a LOT. Less staffing costs, less paperwork, etc. At the same time, you wouldn't see these inflated rates being charged, since the doctors don't need to play the game of getting 100% of what they need while only being paid 60% of what they charge.

Well, surprise, surprise. The free-market system works! There is a pharmacy in Lynnwood that is cash-only. No insurance at all is accepted, billed, anything. The pharmacy reports that this has decreased their staffing costs alone by 30%, and the prescription drugs there are priced competitively with the prices in Canada.

Of course, there is the predictable grumbling from the Insurance Commissioner, where, "The insurance commissioner is considering new regulations for such practices", a spokeswoman said. Of course. God forbid that anything run TOO efficiently for the government bureaucrats to make sense of it.

And of course the obligatory reference to "low-income people" not being able to afford a doctor on retainer through a cash-only basis, etc. (is someone forcing "low-income people" to do this? I must've missed that part...)

Anyway, it's nice to see that a few people are going against the flow of big insurance, and the free-market system is prevailing yet again.

# posted by Scott : 7:26 AM