Today’s Wall Street Journal includes a number of pro/con features on various aspects of health policy, leading off with the question of mandating the purchase of governmentally approved insurance. In the letter below, Don Boudreaux crushes the argument in favor made by Prof. Karen Davenport.
Editor, The Wall Street Journal
Dear Editor: I feel that I'm twirling in the Twilight Zone when I read Karen Davenport, debating Michael Cannon, praise Obamacare for "requiring insurers to price premiums without regard to health status" – and then insist that this regulation, combined with Uncle Sam's mandate that everyone purchase such insurance, will increase the availability of health insurance ("Should Everyone Be Required to Have Health Insurance?" Jan. 23).
Does Prof. Davenport advocate this model also for other businesses - say, restaurants? Does she think that restaurant customers will be better served if government requires restaurants to price meals without regard to 'hunger status,' so that the bill paid by a diner who orders lobster and a bottle of '61 Chateau Latour is the same price as the bill paid by a diner who orders only a cup of soup? Does she think that whatever problems might arise from such a regulation will be solved if the government also forces every American to buy a minimum number of restaurant meals? After all, food - even more so than health-care - is necessary for life.
If Prof. Davenport doesn't advocate this regulatory model for restaurants, why doesn't she? (Please, Prof. Davenport, no protests that
the health-care market is 'unique.' Of course it's unique; ALL
markets are unique. But is the health-care market unique in ways that prompt people consistently to act against their financial self-interest,as you apparently expect insurance companies to do?)
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
