Gut Feeling On Healthcare

It's pretty understandable, especially in a time when so many people are getting laid off, to take the forced job change as a time to reeducate yourself and try for a different career. One of the careers commonly being put forward as the next big thing is heath care. I will agree that health care is a critical component of our future economy. However I think it is important to not get tunnel vision during this economic catastrophe.

Lets look at IT in the 90's. IT went from something that was new and hard to implement to something that was critical for everything. IT workers we in such demand that even high schoolers were doing a lot of technical support jobs in their free time, in direct competition with oldskool 'computer engineers.' So imagine the situation. You are a computer user... emphasis on 'user' and it 'breaks'... the market switched from NEEDING a engineer with a masters or doctoral degree to resolder circuits back into place or to recode software... to a market that primarily needed knowledgeable people to run virus scans and backups... and maybe plug in new hard drives or video cards. Remember it used to be when you bought a PC there was a seal on the case that if it was broken, you would void your warranty. Now hard drives are user installable and components autodetect. ... and there is no need for a degree in computer engineering to do any of it... Things both got more user friendly and the users got more knowledgeable.

Lets apply this to health care. Already the mystique of a medical degree is wearing off. Not only to people get second or seventh opinions, but they can research their symptoms themselves on the internet. I've gotten prescriptions just by telling a doctor what I have... how much longer is he going to be able to charge $200 to write a note? Lets add a bunch of soon to be educated medical students who are going to be competing in this market further driving down the price.

Lets face it, we don't need to legislate a value of services, and by subsidizing expenses we only allow them to remain expensive. If a service starts to get too valuable, people will change careers to bring it's value back into balance with the market.