In a new National Review piece titled ?Obamanopoly,? Regina Herzlinger explains how the prices associated with consumer-driven health care would work better than government mandates in increasing access to health insurance and controlling costs:
In state-run systems, costs are obscured through subsidies, cost-shifting, and third-party-payer mechanisms. But what about in competitive markets for other products? A recent J.D. Power survey found that preferences for automobile options shift markedly once consumers are informed about costs. For example: Absent price information, navigation systems were consumers? No. 1 pick among car options ? but when the $1,600 price was revealed, they slipped to No. 14 in the rankings. Swiss consumers are required to buy their own health insurance from private companies, and the exhibit moderate price elasticity in their purchases ? in other words, they look at the price tag when they?re choosing the options. Reearchers for the American Enterprise Institute discovered similar price elasticity in the United States and concluded that 12 million uninsured Americans would be able to find affordable coverage if they were permitted to shop in states that had fewer required benefits but better prices (current law forbids them). That cannot happen under a government-run market.
