Crows

This post was inspired by one of Mike Munger's recent TAITC episodes . The big issues with spiraling health care costs in the US are (a) that the market has been distorted (mostly by regulation and cartel behavior) into a completely perverse state where normal price signals and competition are broken; and (b) that there's no single payer central planner dictating prices to keep them as low as they can be without driving every worker out of the medical field. (The latter is only a "solution" in one sense, in that it optimizes for price over every other consideration; see my last paragraph below.) Fundamentally, there is no reason why health care should be any different from any other market, like for TVs or cars or landscaping or home furnishings, where buyers and sellers collectively negotiate prices for various goods and services. (Witness the low and very public prices for Lasik and other completely elective procedures not covered by insurance.) Unfortunately, every...

The big problem that faces commercial aviation is not greedy airlines. Airlines are profit-making businesses like any other: they exist to make money, which is why you are able to purchase a plane ticket at all, so be grateful for a free market providing this essential service that enables much of modernity. No, the big problem is that customers bitch and moan about tiny seats that are too close together, being nickel-and-dimed for everything, flight cancellations and delays, checked bag fees... and then proceed to reveal their actual preference for the lowest available fare. And are seemingly unable to connect the dots between these things. This is why I'm not all that broken up about Spirit going bankrupt: competition in a market overwhelmingly dominated by the price-conscious buyer primarily serves to drive down prices, not to create options or provide differentiation for segments of the market, and the last thing we need in air travel is lower prices. Here's what the drive ...