The architect of Obamacare, Ezekiel Emanuel, was in San Francisco yesterday to attend the 35th Annual JP Morgan Healthcare Conference.
I caught up with him at the Commonwealth Club and challenged him to explain why his central planning system was better than free markets. His answer was uninspiring and suggested the thinking of a man who does not understand free market allocation systems, free market pricing as signals for businessmen and consumers and free markets as a structure which provides incentives for businesses to provide better and cheaper products to consumers.
In a follow-up question, I asked him how he addressed the view of Friedrich Hayek that central planners of economies held a fatal conceit about their ability to plan complex systems with dispersed knowledge. As you will observe, he does not appear to be a fan of Hayek.
-RW
Ideas so great they need to be enforced at the point of a gun.
ReplyDelete"you don't know what you want, but I do". Incredible arrogance from this POS, as though doctors (especially those in government) are infallible.
ReplyDelete. People don't understand their car or many things in their home, yet they are recommended service/treatment and a robust market exists. His analysis is extremely short sighted.
ReplyDeleteI hope he's forced to suffer through many days of immeasurable liberty and respect for property rights. What a smug tyrannical twit.
ReplyDeleteA hospital will work out a payment plan with you for exorbitant expenses. It's not rocket science. Somehow people are able to pay for a house, but I guess paying a hospital bill is just inconceivable, according to this guy.
ReplyDeleteBy what mechanism do people too stupid to know their own best interests elect sound leaders of good judgement and will?
ReplyDeleteEven if Emanuel's claims about the stupidity of people are true it does not follow that we ought to have politicians and their appointees allocate health care services. Politicians are, after all, elected to office by the same people Emanuel claims are too stupid to know what they should want.
It's "the miracle of aggregation" (which Bryan Caplan and others have thoroughly smashed as it applies to democracy.)
DeleteYes, I never could get with that aggregation nonsense (even prior to the Myth of the Rational Voter which I agree is excellent). Any argument people like Emanuel use against the miracle of aggregation with respect to the market mechanism can very easily be used against the functioning of the miracle vis-a-vis democratic, managerial government. Every one of the classic intro to micro market failures have their equals or better in government.
DeleteHe seems completely oblivious to the fact that the high costs of health care and health insurance are themselves a function of prior state intervention in these two systems, dating back to the early 20th century. More proof of the Mises point that one intervention begets another, and another...
ReplyDelete