Good Free Market In USA: Will The Healthcare Delivery System Improve With Free Market Medicine? Critical Thinking Example

I learned different things from the “Free Market Medicine” that I was not aware before. First among them is the fact there are now approximately 140,000 codes—and counting—which is a lot bigger compared to the previous codes estimated to be only 16,000 (“Free Market or Government Medicine,” 2013). I also learned that there is now a code for very specific aspects of injuries or accidents which the new “ObamaCare” bill supposedly covers. Like a code for an injury caused by a duck bite and another for when a duck strikes an individual (“Free Market or Government Medicine,” 2013). As a result of such law, I also learned that more and more doctors spend most of their times scanning these codes to find which one is the most appropriate as failure to do so may cause them to lose their license and their job (“Free Market or Government Medicine,” 2013). I also learned that one physician-owned surgery center in Oklahoma is actually capable of significantly reducing the price of their services, claiming that the prices they impose are transparent (“Free Market or Government Medicine,” 2013). Such setup—doctors run the hospital free from the intervention of any “for-profit” healthcare companies—just proves that a hospital can actually run and serve people with the most decent and up-to-date technology without the overwhelming high charges or fees (“Free Market or Government Medicine,” 2013). I also learned that competition caused by free market healthcare can prompt healthcare institutions to improve the quality of their care with a reduced/lower cost to attract and maintain more clients—serving mutual benefits for the healthcare stakeholders and patients seeking for low cost but efficient healthcare (“Free Market or Government Medicine,” 2013).
As analyzed by many studies, the new ObamaCare bill does not actually live up to its supposed function of making American healthcare more accessible and affordable (Roy, 2012; Saha, 2006). With the newest revisions and additional codes, healthcare for Americans has become more elusive and harder to achieve (“Free Market or Government Medicine,” 2013). I believe that changes needed to be made in order to rectify the abnormalities in American healthcare system nowadays should include (1) loosening government’s hold of public healthcare, (2) tax exemptions of some employers due to the size of their manpower, (3) allowing more healthcare institutions participate in a free market environment with enough supervision to avoid irrational price hikes and surcharges, and (4) removing all the necessary codes that limit what doctors can do and what patients can receive.
Loosening government’s hold of the American healthcare means removing the far-grasping interventions they implement through lengthy and overly numerous codes and laws (“Free Market or Government Medicine,” 2013). This would be helpful in eliminating unnecessary laws that prove more to be a burden than benefit to the givers and recipients of healthcare. Tax exemptions on healthcare should also be removed as such pass the burden to Americans, blowing up their financial liabilities to illogical extent (Roy, 2012). Allowing healthcare institutions to participate in a free market environment may also be necessary to reduce costs and improve quality of healthcare (“Free Market or Government Medicine,” 2013). Competition among healthcare, as mentioned above, prompts healthcare providers to reduce their costs with an improved quality of care to maintain and attract more clients (“Free Market or Government Medicine,” 2013). Removing all the necessary codes and making the entire Affordable Care Act more generalized will also help more doctors improve the quality of their work by spending more time observing their patients than scanning codes to specify which will perfectly fit the situation presented to them—also benefitting patients who need excellent healthcare not a specified place in a code book (“Free Market or Government Medicine,” 2013).

References

Free Market or Government Medicine: What Will Be The New Way? (2013, April 25). John Stossel (Youtube). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0e3-EvpDwM
Roy, A. (2012, Mar. 9). The Myth of ‘Free-Market’ American Health Care – And The Reality of Singapore’s. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2012/03/09/the-myth-of-free-market-american-health-care/
Saha, S. (2006). The Inherent Inequities of Market-Based Health Care Reform. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 21(11), 1211-1212. DOI:  10.1111/j.1525-1497.2006.00618.x