Jeff Jacoby points out in a Boston Globe op-ed that our current health care system encourages patients to overconsume medical care.
No doubt the usual bleeding hearts will criticize him, but Jacoby is entirely right. I know from personal experience.
When I had cancer, I never negotiated prices with my oncologist; I just took the treatment I was offered. No doubt if I’d been paying first dollar I could have pushed for a discount. After all, people with mortal illnesses have great bargaining power. Did I really need those expensive blood-growth factors? Or that last round of chemo? And think how much money I could have saved by dying!
It’s just criminal to let sick people have the luxury of thinking about getting better rather than thinking about controlling health care costs. Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know.