I recently got in a bike crash and separated my shoulder, and my trips to the emergency room and various doctors got me thinking about how difficult to navigate the US health care system really is. Going to the ER, in a great amount of pain required me to wait around for hours before before being seen by a doctor. They were quick to make sure I have insurance, and that opened up levels of care not afforded to the myriad of uninsured patients. After visiting the ER, I called my orthopedist, but he no longer accepts my insurance, so I had to go to the website, find a new orthopedist, make an appointment, realize I didn’t like him, find a new doctor, and so on.
Of course, life does not have to be this difficult. When I go buy a car, I don’t have to work nearly as hard, so why should buying healthcare be any different? In his brilliant book, The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor–and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car!, Tim Harford lays out the difficulties of health care policy as well as how to overcome many of the problems in the US system. This post recounts his solution with some comments of my own.
How to Solve the Health Care Crisis
Sometimes I forget that I have a photographic memory.
