PrintNovember 28, 2009
Obama's Medical Monopoly
If there's anything worse than a private-sector monopoly, it's a government-run monopoly. The difference is that in the private sector, everyone is free to compete and remove the monopolist's monopoly status, while a government monopoly forbids competition and compels the citizenry to patronize its operation. It is still illegal, for example, to start a business competing with the United States Postal Service, as 19th-century American individualist and entrepreneur Lysander Spooner learned.Right now, insurance companies already have a virtual monopoly with the help of government-imposed regulations that make it impossible for entrepreneurs to get in the act. Doctors have a virtual monopoly by state licensing and their power to restrict entry into the field to accredited medical schools. The result of this government-protected virtual monopoly is fewer consumer choices in insurance companies, fewer medical schools and doctors, and the protection of doctors' high salaries, as well as...(Read Full Article)
