Monday, March 13, 2017

How Free Market Health Care Will Work

You are watching pre-season baseball on TV when suddenly your appendix bursts. As you writhe on the floor in agony you manage to reach your cellphone.

The first thing you do is shop for an emergency room. You could just go to the closest but that one is expensive and only has two stars on Yelp. So, you shop around, calling a couple of hospitals to find out how much they charge for appendix removal. You finally select the hospital run by Supercuts. They're cheap and they'll give you a free haircut while you're in surgery.

You're in too much pain to drive so now you need to find an ambulance. In the old days you would dial 911 and government employed paramedics would respond. But that socialist concept has been replaced by the free market.

You could take the bus but they don't run on Saturdays. You consider calling a cab but think you might need an IV and definitely need pain killers. So you order Uber's new paramedic service. Their drivers are not trained and licensed paramedics but they are the only service that doesn't require you to schedule your emergency two days in advance.

You somehow miraculously survive and wait for the insurance company to reimburse you. In a couple days your insurers tell you that since you did not buy the "burst organs" rider to your insurance they can only cover the cutting you open and sewing you back up parts of the surgery. And the insurance company charges you for the haircut.

Since you made a claim on your insurance you lose your "healthy person discount." Your rates skyrocket. Also, the insurance claim dings your credit rating. Also too, some of the clippings from the haircut got into the incision. You die of septicemia because your insurance company won't cover haircut related infections.

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