Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

Remember Father Guido Sarducci (Don Novello) telling us on Saturday Night Live that the only thing anyone ever remembers from their college economics course is “Supply and Demand”?

If only.

The only way to reduce the cost of health care is to increase supply.

Right now medicine in the United States is a cartel that limits entry and restricts supply.

Medical schools are limited in the number of physicians they graduate. Same for nursing schools.

Who may provide medical services is restricted by government licensing.

States are not required under the “full faith and credit” clause of the Constitution (Article IV, Section 1) to recognize medical licenses from other states. Florida is well-known for preventing medical doctors who move to the state in their “golden” years from practicing medicine in Florida.

The number of hospitals and beds are limited by government licensing.

Medical doctors who have degrees and have practiced medicine in foreign countries are not allowed to emigrate to the United States to practice medicine here.

The FDA limits what drugs may be purchased either by prescription (from that cartel of licensed physicians and physicians’ assistants) and “over the counter.”

Purchasing from out-of-U.S. pharmacies is actively blockaded and penalized.

Purchasing health insurance across state lines is prohibited by federal law—another major restriction on supply.

The prices of medical services is bid up by government entitlement programs, particularly Medicare.

So supply is restricted by government, and the price is bid up by increased government demand.

Then Democrats and Republicans debate everything except doing the only things that will reduce health-care costs: increasing the supply by removing legal barriers to providing health-care services and increasing consumer availability of drugs and health supplements and reducing the demand by government not bidding up prices.

The only solution is freedom.

Let foreign doctors and nurses in.

Let doctors move their practices wherever they like without having to go to medical school again.

Open up providing medical services to service providers who haven’t kissed the ass of the medical cartels.

Open up the borders to importation of foreign-manufactured drugs—and get rid of the infantalized system whereby adults need permission slips from government-licensed bureaucrats before you can decide for yourself what drugs and supplements you can take.

Otherwise—Democrats and Republicans—cut the crap that you actually give a damn about healthcare.

YOU’RE the problem.?

Reprinted from Google+ Mar 08, 2017.