NYT:
WASHINGTON — The White House on Wednesday issued new rules requiring health insurance companies to provide free coverage for dozens of screenings, laboratory tests and other types of preventive care.
“Free” coverage, eh? I guess government missed the Econ 101 lecture on opportunity cost. If you translate what the state is really saying here, what you get is, “Hey private companies, we are going to force you to take losses because we deem something socially desirable and we don’t feel like paying for it.” Man, I love compulsion…
What’s even worse is that for every step forward this program makes in catching a condition early and maybe even saving a life, it will take us just as many steps backward because zeroing out a price confuses people and leads to excess, unnecessary consumption. More people will get tests they don’t need, insurers will take losses for all of them and as a result, the rest of us will pay higher premiums. I thought that the failure of centrally planned economies had at least taught us by now that real, meaningful prices are essential to the health of any economy.
The Country Estate 