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Tuesday, April 27, 2010

One Last Time: Markets Don't Ration!

The Wall Street Journal takes Donald Berwick, likely the next Medicare chief, to task for saying, “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care—the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open. And right now, we are doing it blindly.”

Fine. But then the editorial writer adds, “In fact, the real choice with medical care, as with any good or service, is between rationing via politics and bureaucratic lines or via a competitive market and prices.”

Wrong. Markets don’t ration, for the reasons I explain here.

4 comments:

Neera K Badhwar said...

"Markets don't ration..." That's what i thought, but then i heard some economists here talking about rationing via prices.... What's a layperson to do?!

Sheldon Richman said...

Hold your ground!

Neera K Badhwar said...

Holding!

Sheldon Richman said...

We lay folk must stick together.