Hsieh LTE in Christian Science Monitor

The March 7, 2008 edition of the Christian Science Monitor printed my LTE on free markets and health care:

The government hand in healthcare raises costs

Regarding the March 3 article, "Arguments mount for national healthcare": In David Francis's recent commentary on national healthcare, Shannon Brownlee blames rising healthcare costs on a failure of the free market. In my opinion, the exact opposite is true. It is government interference in the free market that has created the current crisis. Any system of national healthcare would merely worsen the current problems.

National healthcare programs violate the rights of consumers and healthcare providers to contract freely for medical services according to their best judgment. Such programs inevitably lead to rising costs and rationing, as demonstrated repeatedly in Sweden, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

In contrast, the free market consistently lowers costs and increases availability. Those sectors of medicine that are least regulated by the government (such as LASIK and cosmetic surgery) have shown the typical pattern over time of falling prices and rising quality that we take for granted in the rest of the US economy. Because the free market respects individual rights, it is the only practical and moral solution for the problem of rising healthcare costs.

Paul Hsieh, MD
Cofounder, Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine
Sedalia, Colo.