For instance, take the mythical “widget”. You research all the different types of widgets, find out the best deal, and purchase it.
Manufactures and suppliers compete to offer the best widget for the lowest price. You set a budget, and buy the “most bang for the buck” widget.
Now think about healthcare. What if your child has cancer? What is your budget to save them?
Are you going to be enticed by a discount coupon or “one day only sale” from one of the local competing hospitals?
Are you going to make a rational cost-benefit decision?
Or would you be willing to mortgage your house, cash out your RRSP, and sell everything you own, if it meant saving them?
That’s the problem. The standard “supply and demand” economic model does not apply.
Now, I definitely think private healthcare has a role – for elective and optional procedures.
But for emergency and critical care, for-profit healthcare just doesn’t make sense to me.
What do you think?