Healthcare: Limited Supply vs. Unlimited Demand

[Ichingcarpenter]

I must preface my column with the observation that there is at least one instance when an apparently-infinite demand for product can be sated by human hands. We are more or less able to feed ourselves which means that the human hunger for food may be met by the seemingly-limited human capacity to grow it, though it should be noted that, over time, there are no hard limits on how much food we can produce. Demand may exceed supply at times, but overall, we get the job done well enough to stay alive as a species. This is an instance of effectively infinite supply meeting an effectively infinite demand, even though one can not regard supply or demand as being infinite within the context of a single moment of time much less any clearly defined time span.

Another human demand which is effectively infinite is the human need for healthcare. Obviously one can only see the demand for healthcare as infinite if one considers the persistent emergence of demand for healthcare day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. Compounding this fact is the tendency of humanity to live longer when exposed to adequate healthcare which, in turn, produces inflated need for healthcare as the average age of the population increases. The more healthcare you get, the more you’ll need until no amount of available healthcare can stave off death. Taken to absurd extremes, one dying individual could consume all available healthcare resources worldwide and still not survive the experience. For both of these reasons, we may rationally conclude that the demand for healthcare is infinite.

The supply of healthcare, on the other hand, is finite, even when viewed from a chronologically-transcendent perspective. Unlike food which can, and has, sprung forth from seeds humanity never sewed, healthcare is a synthetic product of human effort. Supply is limited by the availability of medical resources, the knowhow to convert those resources into useful medical products, and the skill to administer care effectively. No matter how much money you add to the healthcare equation, there is a fixed amount that may be dispensed by a similarly fixed number of healthcare professionals. Throwing extra money at the healthcare industry really doesn’t change anything in the short term other than increase the price people will be expected to pay for the finite amount of healthcare available. And, no matter how much we commit resources to the healthcare industry, there will be a soft cap on how much our society can provide; not everyone can be a doctor.

These observations may seem meaningless until they are viewed in context of the national healthcare debate raging in this year’s Presidential election cycle. We have been promised by nearly every candidate that a solution to rising healthcare and health insurance costs will be provided by the federal government. No matter how money is redirected or redistributed in an attempt to provide more Americans with adequate healthcare, the amount of healthcare available will not appreciably increase beyond its logical ceiling, a ceiling we may already be approaching thanks to the growing burden our aging population is placing upon the healthcare industry. Give uninsured, poor Americans sufficient money and/or insurance to demand healthcare for themselves, and the overall demand for healthcare will increase much faster than will supply. The result: Americans given the promise of healthcare by the federal government will be priced out of the market according to the laws of supply and demand. There simply is not enough healthcare to meet the needs of every American, a fact that is already represented by the inability of many Americans to afford their own healthcare (or the insurance necessary to guarantee it). Many of those promised adequate care by their insurers are already suffering inadequate or delayed care, and the introduction of federal healthcare initiatives will likely worsen the quality and availability of care to those supposedly entitled to it by law.>>>snip


http://whitehouser.com/policy/domestic/healthcare-limited-supply-metting-unlimited-demand/

[Hannah Bell]

1. Right...

people love going to the doctor so much, love surgeries so much, if you give them single payer they'll just flood in, begging to have repeated rectal exams & appendectomies.

Disproven by the experience of countries where health care is universal. Most folks prefer avoiding the doctor, pills & surgeries, unless they think something's wrong.

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. He is saying to get rid of the insurance companies and

hire more doctors and health care workers.

[Hannah Bell]

3. Great, except that healthcare is already one of the...

largest sectors of the economy. Is it really a supply problem per se? Is there really unlimited demand? If the propositions are false, what does that do for the conclusion?

Just saying.

[PDJane]

4. That's absolute nonsense.

The trouble with the hypothesis is that people will, if they have access to care, take care of the little things before they become big things.

There is one more problem; a hybridsystem like the one in the US actually costs the government more.

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. Agreed here is a World Map of inhabitants per doctor ratio.

[CitizenRob]

6. A standard, and nothing more.

I'd be all for the government establishing a basic minimum health care standard.

In other words, the government says "We'll cover the costs for medical care if it falls within the basic minimum health care standard of... " and then set out the rules.

For example, "the government shall cover the cost of life threatening, treatable, conditions at a rate of X dollars." Then tie that to a rule that no health care provider may refuse a patient.

Granted, we already have something similar, except that the bill isn't covered by the government, the person is billed for it.

[Fovea]

7. Note to Mr. Anderson.

Spectacularly poor analysis. Illogical.

Not everyone needs to be a doctor to promote health and provide health care.

No hunter gatherer cultures provide anything you describe by the term healthcare.
But even they can generate food. Not a lot, and not very nutritious, but sufficient. And sufficient... that is the word of the day. And they do that because they are comprised of hunter gatherers.

While food may grow itself, other than Euell Gibbons fans few non farm country folks could identify soybean on the hoof, as it were. Your supply of food is just as limited by your ability to recognize it, and know how to take it from wild grain to baked bread. Or butcher and preserve meat, for that matter.

The inadequate care received by insurance customers is not due to the absolute availability of those services, but rather the greed of the corporations for greater profit.

Further, your redux of the canard of universal care as unable to provide emergency care reveals the extent and nature of your PoV on this subject. Private allocation of public goods. Tomorrow an infinite number of mail items might conceivably be posted. Should we privatize the post office?

Triage-- google it. That term is the answer to your opinion of universal health care. It is the strategy that accommodates for localized shortages of resources. It is how care is allocated under shortage in the current private system and all public systems. It works with food too.

Lastly, despite the supposed hopelessness of universal health care allocation, all other modern developed nations somehow manage enough care to keep their populations stable, to apply your food standard for success. This would not be so if your murky argument held any water whatsoever. That level of care may not be CheneyCare, but it is better than no care.

Actual shortages are resulting from market forces and the private health care paradigm, not despite it.

You speak authoritatively, and erroneously. To the citizen who cannot afford sufficient health care to maintain health for themselves or family, your argument is somewhere between savage and abhorrent, but way way past merely offensive.

[GOPBasher]

8. Idiotic... What about the rest of the developed world? n/t