That’s how economist Bob Graboyes titles a recent Bastiat’s Window post of his. This is his field, and he offers some solid thinking on the question of why we get such lousy health-care legislation.
Two key paragraphs:
The Fortress has two goals. First is to imagine all the terrible things that might go wrong in healthcare and prevent any of them from happening. Second is to shield those in the medical industry—doctors, hospitals, insurers, drug and device manufacturers—from potential competitors who might threaten their turf.
The Frontier is different. It understands that big quality improvements and cost reductions don’t come without accepting some risk. And it understands that real innovation won’t occur unless doctors and hospitals face new competitors—like IBM faced Apple and Western Electric faced BlackBerry. While left and right think of themselves as radically different, both are deep in the Fortress.
Yes. The Fortress is what you get when government intrudes so that interest groups can get and keep what they want. Remember what James Madison said about factions? In the field of health care, legislation aims not at improving health for ordinary people but at buying support from groups with lots of money and influence. Now that we have started down the interventionist road, we keep getting bipartisan junk that makes things worse — except for the inhabitants of the Fortress.
Why don’t the parties concentrate on items that would actually make health care better and less costly for ordinary people?
I’m going to suggest that they don’t because politics is about theatrics of public perception. The parties care about what wins elections.
When LBJ pushed through Medicare and Medicaid, he and the Democrats were not thinking that such measures would actually help people; they thought it would sound great in campaign ads — the party of compassion and all that. It was a good way of capitalizing on the idea they had long been spreading that taking care of people was the government’s job. Similarly, why do Democrats keep demanding stricter gun-control legislation? Because it will actually reduce violence? No — because it plays well with many voters.