Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Choice and Competition

I really don't understand why apparently smart people think that choice and competition are something people want from a prescription drug insurance plan or that it's in any way likely to lead to better outcomes for consumers.

On the producer (insurer) side the reason to support competition is that it will lead to lower costs. But Medicare has incredibly low administration costs while administrative costs everywhere else are crazy.

One the consumer side, what possible flexibility exists that one would want from a plan? You want to get cheap drugs when you need them. That's it. You don't want to have to worry about which drugs your plan might cover. You don't want to worry about having the plan suddenly stop covering the drugs you like. You want to know that when you get sick you'll get cheap drugs. That's it.

It's just stupid.