09/09/2008 4:56:37 am
Health Care and Markets. This morning, I listened to, among others, William Niskanen, Chairman of the Cato Institute and former Reagan advisor, and John C Goodman, President of the National Center for Policy Analysis - on the topic of health care and the free market. There is no market-based health care system in the world, but the degree of government intervention differs. I noted a number of interesting facts.

One such piece of information regarded the 47 million people in the US who do not have health insurance. After one year, only 25 % of them are uninsured, and after two years, only 9 % are. That is, almost all of them are temporarily uninsured, usually when they are between jobs.

Another interesting fact is the increase in private health care insurance in countries that supposedly have universal coverage of health care. in Australia and New Zealand, 1/3 of the population now have private health insurance. In Britain, 7 million have. And in a smaller country like Denmark, 600 000 have, and in Sweden, 400 000 have.