One of the major fallacies in the health care debate is that reform will somehow lead to rationing. As every reasonable analyst has already noted (e.g., in this post by Echnidne), we already have rationing. Right now, those who can pay get care. Those who can’t, don’t. The market determines distribution of resources, but it does so in fundamentally unfair and irrational ways. In other words, the market rations health care.
Here’s the latest example. In Columbus, Ohio, Wal-Mart is offering vaccinations against the swine flu. Wal-Mart called itself a clinic, requested vaccine from the state, and got it.
The result? People who live in Columbus and happen to hear the news first will get vaccinated before people who are at high risk due to asthma, pregnancy, diabetes, emphysema, and so on. This is so obviously unfair that it almost doesn’t bear mentioning. And yet, it obviously needs to be mentioned loudly and repeatedly, because market mechanisms are the worst way to allocate scarce health care resources – especially when it comes to infectious diseases that can harm the public health and not just individuals.
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