Regardless of where one stands on how health care should be delivered, the fact is that the price of a good or service can never be made lower by subsidizing demand. Only with supply expansion and competition can the real cost of a good or service be lowered, especially if it’s a good or service with a relatively fixed supply like health care. From noted economist John Cochrane and his blog, The Grumpy Economist:

 

“The discussion over health policy rages over who will pay — private insurance, companies, ‘single payer,’ Obamacare, VA, Medicare, Medicaid, and so on — as if once that’s decided everything is all right — as if once we figure out who is paying the check, the provision of health care is as straightforward a service as the provision of restaurant food, tax advice, contracting services, airline travel, car repair, or any other reasonably functional market for complex services.

As anyone who has ever visited a hospital knows, this is nowhere near the case. The health care market in the US is profoundly screwed up. The ridiculous bills you get after the fact are only one sign of evident dysfunction. The dysfunction comes down to a simple core: lack of competition. [emphasis mine] Airlines would love to charge you the way hospitals do. But if they try, competitors will come in and offer clearer, simpler and better service at a lower price.

Fixing the supply of health care strikes me as the policy win-win. [emphasis mine] Instead of the standard left-right screaming match, ‘we’re spending too much,’ ‘you heartless monster, people will die,’ a more competitive health care market giving us better service at lower cost, making a cash market possible, makes everyone’s goals come closer.”

 

Health care is a very divisive issue, but I think few people really understand it enough to have an informed opinion. Sorry if that sounds elitist; well, not really…

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I have written about the significance of the 1963 model year before. It was the year which saw the introduction of the C2 Corvette, the Buick Riviera and the Studebaker Avanti. Those are three very important models. What do these cars have in common?

(Picture from carswithmuscles.com.)

 

(Also from carswithmuscles.com.)

 

(From thelastdetail.com)

 

(From hotrod.com)

 

Some of you know that all of these cars were introduced for the 1967 model year. Some might also say counting the Camaro and Firebird as separate models is cheating since both shared much as GM products, but I think they have enough differences (engines for one thing) to count as two different models.

These are all very desirable cars in my opinion and the Eldorado is a contender for Ultimate Garage 2.0. (The car at the bottom is a Mercury Cougar.) What years do you think are significant in automobile history? 1949? 1955? I would very much like to read your opinions.

 

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

 

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