Health-care debate with J.E. Hill, part 1

A few days ago I sent the following e-mail to several people:

I believe we have to do whatever we can to stop the threat posed by Obamacare to our health-care system, our economic well being, and our freedom. If you agree, here's something that's easy to do:

http://www.capitolconnect.com/freeourhealthcarenow/default.aspx

Just fill in the required information to send e-mails to members of Congress asking them to vote against Obamacare. It'll take you less than 5 minutes. You can simply send the text provided or edit it as desired. I hope you'll also forward this link to others who might be interested.

One of the people I sent it to was J.E. Hill, a writer for The Skeptical Review. He responded as follows:

Yeah, right. Let's keep having insurance companies come between us and our doctors, turn us down for insurance when we need it the most, and keep on making billions while thousands of Americans die each year from not having adequate health care.

My response:

Thanks for getting back to me on this important issue. You're right that we have extremely serious problems with health care in this country. However, that's not the fault of the free market. Is it merely a coincidence that our health-care industry is simultaneously the most heavily-regulated/subsidized, as well as the most dysfunctional? Can you think of any other US industries in which costs have been consistently increasing at a rate way beyond overall inflation, while the quality of the products delivered to consumers continues to decline? The only example I can think of is higher education, which also suffers from heavy government involvement and subsidization. A lot of people complain about gasoline prices, but corrected for the overall inflation rate, they've been relatively stable over the years:

http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html

Here's an Atlantic article that provides one of the best explanations I've seen of what's gone wrong with the health-care sector:

http://tinyurl.com/ya57hen

The only viable solution to these problems is massive deregulation and elimination of subsidies. Expansion of government regulation and subsidization will only serve to further increase costs and/or reduce the quality and quantity of available care. If you don't believe that, read a few of these articles about what's going on in Canada:

http://jcbweblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/canadian-health-care-articles.html

Hill's response:

I really don't care to read your "best explanations" as you would not want to read mine. This is a common sense issue. Except for Medicare, the government has maintained a hands-off attitude toward health care, and Medicare is one of the most successful programs ever...just ask any senior.

There is no "free market" in this country. There is no reputable economist that would assert that we have a "free market." This is a chimera used by the right to keep the ignorant thinking they are getting a really great deal all the while being taken to the cleaners.

You cannot have a free market with a central bank; you cannot have a free market when the government supports certain corporations through tax breaks or cash incentives (corporate welfare); you cannot have a free market by giving corporations subsidies. You cannot have a free market with anti-trust laws and government regulations.

Of course we all know what can happen without the last one.

Without a strong central bank, anti-trust laws, and regulations, unbridled capitalism would resemble the capitalism of the turn of the century. The Great Depression was not caused by the central bank, but lack of regulations and checks and balances in the "free-for-all" market economy created by speculators.  Sound familiar?

I don't mind capitalism. But capitalism without limits or ethics or a moral guidance spawns unbridled greed.

Healthcare in this country is unbridled greed. If there is one thing about the present proposal that bothers me it's that it does not go far enough for universal care or tax the wealthy enough to pay for it.

Oh, you wanted one more US industry in which costs have been consistently increasing at a rate way beyond overall inflation, while the quality of the products delivered to consumers continues to decline...exclusive of the defense contractors, how about the airline industry?

The issue here is quite simply private corporations have been entrusted to provide our healthcare and do a terrible job of it and make billions in profit doing it.

I think you complain too much about people trying to do something to improve our system and make it more competitive.

My response:

> I really don't care to read your "best explanations" as you would not want to read mine.

OK, how about this: I'll read yours if you'll read mine. Or, better yet, I'll read yours even if you don't read mine. Can you send me a link to it?

> This is a common sense issue.

I'm not the first to point out that common sense is not all that common.

> Except for Medicare, the government has maintained a hands-off attitude toward heath care, and Medicare is one of the most successful programs ever...just ask any senior.

The claim that Medicare is the only area of government involvement in health care is completely unsupportable. What about Medicaid? What about the FDA? What about the reams of regulations that must be adhered to by hospitals, doctors, and insurance companies? The government is heavily involved in regulating and/or subsidizing virtually all aspects of medicine, from drugs to insurance. As for Medicare, to say that it is "...one of the most successful programs ever..." is analogous to claiming that Bernie Madoff had one of the most successful investment strategies ever. The only difference between Medicare and what Madoff did is that Medicare is a Ponzi scheme of a size Madoff could only have dreamed of. As Goldhill points out in that Atlantic article:

"In 1966, Medicare and Medicaid made up 1 percent of total government spending; now that figure is 20 percent, and quickly rising."

"In designing Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, the government essentially adopted this comprehensive-insurance model for its own spending, and by the next year had enrolled nearly 12 percent of the population. And it is no coinci­dence that the great inflation in health-care costs began soon after."

> There is no "free market" in this country. There is no reputable economist that would assert that we have a "free market." This is a chimera used by the right to keep the ignorant thinking they are getting a really great deal all the while being taken to the cleaners.

It's true that there is no purely free market in this country (or anywhere else). However, it is also true that there are industries in which the market is relatively much freer of government interference than in other industries. And it is no coincidence that it is the industries in which the government interferes the most that are the most dysfunctional.

> You cannot have a free market with a central bank; you cannot have a free market when the government supports certain corporations through tax breaks or cash incentives (corporate welfare); you cannot have a free market by giving corporations subsidies. You cannot have a free market with anti-trust laws and government regulations.

I completely agree with you on those points. The question is, which works better: a freer market or a more regulated market? Another good question is: what kinds of regulations are beneficial and what kinds are harmful?

> Of course we all know what can happen without the last one.

Or think we know. Opinions vary widely on the effects, intended and otherwise, of various government regulations. I'm not against all regulations, BTW. A rational regulatory framework is necessary to provide a coherent structure within which a free-market system can operate efficiently.

> Without a strong central bank, anti-trust laws, and regulations, unbridled capitalism would resemble the capitalism of the turn of the century. The Great Depression was not caused by the central bank, but lack of regulations and checks and balances in the "free-for-all" market economy created by speculators.  Sound familiar?

Though I'm personally opposed to anti-trust laws, I don't have a problem with a central bank and a reasonable level of economic regulation. But health-care regulations have gone way beyond what is reasonable and common-sense. They're destroying the quality of our health care while rapidly bankrupting the country. Rather than being a helpful bridle to guide the horse of capitalism, our current regulatory environment is more like an injection of mind-and-DNA-altering drugs that has turned the horse into an uncontrollable raging monster.

As for the Great Depression, the government foolishly tried to regulate and spend its way back to prosperity. It didn't work any better than the Bush/Obama bail-outs and stimulus money have worked to end our current economic downturn.

> I don't mind capitalism. But capitalism without limits or ethics or a moral guidance spawns unbridled greed.

I agree with you. I suppose our disagreement is on which forms of regulation are beneficial and which are destructive.

> Healthcare in this country is unbridled greed. If there is one thing about the present proposal that bothers me it that it does not go far enough for universal care or tax the wealthy enough to pay for it.

The problem is not unbridled greed. The problem is that people's natural greed (i.e., rational self interest) is actually heavily bridled in such a manner as to cause severe and destructive distortions of the market. If our health-care problems were due to mere greed, then why is it that other less-regulated industries aren't experiencing analogous problems? Is the oil industry less greedy than the health care industry? What about the consumer electronics industry, the food industry, the automobile industry, or the veterinary-care industry? Why is greed only a destructive force in health care?

> Oh, you wanted one more US industry in which costs have been consistently increasing at a rate way beyond overall inflation, while the quality of the products delivered to consumers continues to decline...exclusive of the defense contractors, how about the airline industry?

Do you have any statistics to back up your claim about the airlines? It's true that quality has declined in the airline industry, but I don't think the cost of airline tickets has gone up on average at a rate beyond overall inflation. In fact, prices seem to be quite low if you shop around and plan your trip in advance. They certainly haven't gone up at the completely insane rates we've seen in the health-care sector. As for quality, that has declined in response to consumer demand. Most people would rather put up with less leg room and no food than pay extra airfare. They just want to get from point A to point B as quickly and cheaply as possible. And the airlines do a remarkably good job of providing what their consumers want. As for the defense industry, do you have evidence that costs have risen at a rate significantly beyond overall inflation or that product quality has deteriorated? I've actually worked for years for a company that does some defense-related consulting. The hourly rates we charge the government have not gone up at a rate significantly different than inflation. But our product is almost exclusively labor (for engineering and R&D). Perhaps the situation for defense contractors who produce hardware is different.

> The issue here is quite simply private corporations have been entrusted to provide our health care and do a terrible job of it and make billions in profit doing it.

They have done a terrible job. The question is why have those corporations done such a terrible job when corporations in virtually every other industry do such a great job? The answer has to do with the perverse incentives and other distortions of the market caused by excessive government interference in the health-care market.

> I think you complain too much about people trying to do something to improve our system and make it more competitive.

I only complain about people who are trying to change our system in ways that will make it worse. ;-)

I'm really enjoying this discussion! Thanks for your responses.

Further discussion of "How American Health Care Killed My Father," by David Goldhill (Atlantic Magazine, September 2009)

E: Ah, the art of cherry-picking.

JCB: Hard to believe you could say that with a straight face. But, since I can't see your face, maybe you didn't. ;^) There was no need to cherry pick. I simply selected a few examples that I liked. It wasn't difficult since I liked virtually everything, except certain aspects of his prescribed cure. Even his cure incorporates some sound ideas and would probably be significantly better than the metastasizing tumor that is our current system. But, since he so deftly shows that the problems we're experiencing are due to almost entirely to distortions of the free market produced by government interference, it amazes me that he fails to see that the optimal cure is to simply eliminate that interference as much as possible.

E: Watch out, you might find yourself a seasonal laborer and without health insurance at all.  I can practice this fine art as well but I don't have time this morning, I have to get to my wage-slave job, that...gives me virtually unlimited health care.  I'd prefer the government just pay me directly out of pocket as it would be cheaper for the taxpayer and other people could get their share.  I will try to get to the picking tonight.  I came away from re-reading the article excited about his proposals.

JCB: Not exciting to me, but certainly far superior to what Congress and the President are proposing.

E: The private insurance industry would be gone!

JCB: You act as though that would be a good thing. Insurance in every other area works well, since the free market is more-or-less allowed to operate as it should. There are no serious crises in life insurance (despite con-jobs like Bank on Yourself), auto insurance, home insurance, etc. As the author shows, our health-insurance crises are due to the heavy hand of government, not the invisible hand of the free market. So why not allow the free market to operate in health insurance as well? What is it about it that is so fundamentally different than other forms of insurance?

That said, his proposal actually might not be too bad, since it would only be for catastrophic insurance. It wouldn't be universal coverage for all health-care-related expenses. For non-catastrophic health-care expenses, the free market would be allowed to operate. At least that's what it sounds like he's proposing. I like that aspect of his plan. Still, I suspect there'd be serious negative unintended consequences involved with giving the government a monopoly on catastrophic health insurance and forcing people to buy it. Due to the complexity of the economy, it's hard to predict what they'd be. I suspect that in our political climate it'd probably turn into another enormous Ponzi scheme, such as Goldhill himself warns us against:

"We will need to reduce, rather than expand, the role of insurance; focus the government’s role exclusively on things that only government can do (protect the poor, cover us against true catastrophe, enforce safety standards, and ensure provider competition); overcome our addiction to Ponzi-scheme financing, hidden subsidies, manipulated prices, and undisclosed results..."

Also, from the standpoint of individual liberty, forcing people to buy health insurance would represent a major loss of individual rights and would set a very bad precedent.

I'll be interested to see if you can find any point in the article at which he blames our health-care woes on the free market, rather than on market distortions caused by government interference. I read the article fairly carefully and didn't find a single instance in which he does that. But I might have missed something. At any rate, I'm afraid you're the one who's going to have to do some intensive cherry picking. ;^)

My take on "How American Health Care Killed My Father," by David Goldhill (Atlantic Magazine, September 2009)

In one of his e-mails, E recommended this article. Here is my reaction:

An excellent article in many ways, though ultimately disappointing. He spends 5 pages explaining in considerable detail how government interference is preventing the free market from operating properly. But then on page 6 he proposes not a restoration of a free market but a different coercive government-controlled system. He's a smart guy; the system he proposes would probably be better than what we have now, but would be far worse than a truly free-market system. I like his idea of using catastrophic coverage coupled with personal savings. But he wants to force people into a single-payer catastrophic insurance program. I wouldn't trust this kind of single-payer, government-mandated program because there'd be no competition. It'd be far superior to allow private corporations to compete for that insurance market. In the previous pages he kept touting the advantages of a competitive marketplace, but then he proposes to do away with competition for the catastrophic insurance. He likes health savings accounts, as do I, but he wants to force people to have them, which is far too coercive for my tastes.

Still the first 5 pages really are excellent. I agree with 99% of what he says in those pages. He makes many insightful observations. For example:

"All of the actors in health care—from doctors to insurers to pharmaceutical companies—work in a heavily regulated, massively subsidized industry full of structural distortions. They all want to serve patients well. But they also all behave rationally in response to the economic incentives those distortions create. Accidentally, but relentlessly, America has built a health-care system with incentives that inexorably generate terrible and perverse results." [Emphasis mine.]

"To achieve maximum coverage at acceptable cost with acceptable quality, health care will need to become subject to the same forces that have boosted efficiency and value throughout the economy. We will need to reduce, rather than expand, the role of insurance; focus the government’s role exclusively on things that only government can do (protect the poor, cover us against true catastrophe, enforce safety standards, and ensure provider competition); overcome our addiction to Ponzi-scheme financing, hidden subsidies, manipulated prices, and undisclosed results; and rely more on ourselves, the consumers, as the ultimate guarantors of good service, reasonable prices, and sensible trade-offs between health-care spending and spending on all the other good things money can buy."
[I take exception with his belief that it's the government's role to protect the poor and to cover us against true catastrophe, but otherwise it's a great quote.]

"Yet spending on health care, by families and by the government, is crowding out spending on almost everything else. As a nation, we now spend almost 18 percent of our GDP on health care. In 1966, Medicare and Medicaid made up 1 percent of total government spending; now that figure is 20 percent, and quickly rising. Already, the federal government spends eight times as much on health care as it does on education, 12 times what it spends on food aid to children and families, 30 times what it spends on law enforcement, 78 times what it spends on land management and conservation, 87 times the spending on water supply, and 830 times the spending on energy conservation. Education, public safety, environment, infrastructure—all other public priorities are being slowly devoured by the health-care beast." [Great statistics. Incredibly scary.]

"The housing bubble offers some important lessons for health-care policy. The claim that something—whether housing or health care—is an undersupplied social good is commonly used to justify government intervention, and policy makers have long striven to make housing more affordable. But by making housing investments eligible for special tax benefits and subsidized borrowing rates, the government has stimulated not only the construction of more houses but also the willingness of people to borrow and spend more on houses than they otherwise would have. The result is now tragically clear." [Excellent analogy.]

"Society’s excess cost from health insurance’s administrative expense pales next to the damage caused by 'moral hazard'—the tendency we all have to change our behavior, becoming spendthrifts and otherwise taking less care with our decisions, when someone else is covering the costs." [That whole section on moral-hazard economy is brilliant.]

I could go on and on about how good those first 5 pages are! But I need to get some sleep. Anyway, I really appreciate your making me aware of that article. Thanks!

E's response to my take on the article: Ah, the art of cherry-picking. Watch out, you might find yourself a seasonal laborer and without health insurance at all. I can practice this fine art as well but I don't have time this morning, I have to get to my wage-slave job, that...gives me virtually unlimited health care. I'd prefer the government just pay me directly out of pocket as it would be cheaper for the taxpayer and other people could get their share. I will try to get to the picking tonight. I came away from re-reading the article excited about his proposals. The private insurance industry would be gone!

Articles on Canadian health care

We're often told by advocates of government-run health care that Canada's system is superior to ours. Last night it occurred to me to search for health-care-related articles on the websites of some Canadian newspapers. If you think a Canadian-style system would solve our health-care problems, take a look at a few of the articles I found:

1.  Globe and Mail (Toronto)   2.  Globe and Mail (Toronto)

3.  Globe and Mail (Toronto)   4.  Globe and Mail (Toronto)

5.  Globe and Mail (Toronto)   6.  Globe and Mail (Toronto)

7.  Globe and Mail (Toronto)   8.  Globe and Mail (Toronto)

9.  Globe and Mail (Toronto)  10. Gazette (Montreal)

11. Gazette (Montreal)   12. Gazette (Montreal)

13. Gazette (Montreal)   14. Gazette (Montreal)

15. Gazette (Montreal)   16. Gazette (Montreal)

17. Gazette (Montreal)   18. Gazette (Montreal)

19. Gazette (Montreal)   20. Province (Vancouver)

21. Province (Vancouver)   22. Province (Vancouver)

23. Province (Vancouver)   24. Province (Vancouver)

25. Province (Vancouver)   26. Province (Vancouver)

27. Herald (Calgary)   28. Herald (Calgary)

29. Inside Toronto

Socialism restricts individual freedom

A fundamental problem I have with socialism is the extent to which it restricts personal freedom of choice. Suppose a citizen of a country with a purely socialized health-care system becomes seriously ill. What treatment options does she have? If she happens to be wealthy enough to travel to a more free-market-oriented country for treatment, then she will have other options. But suppose she isn't wealthy. In that case she has no viable option other than to accept whatever treatment the government-imposed rationing bureaucracy is willing to provide. If the system provides her with inferior, outmoded care or puts her on a long waiting list for time-critical treatments or surgery, she simply has to accept that. She could support political reforms that would reduce the degree of rationing and/or implement a more free-market system. But as a seriously-ill person, she'd have little time or energy for that. Even assuming she were able to achieve such reforms, she could easily be dead long before they were implemented. Now suppose she lived in a country with a free-market health-care system. In that case, she'd have myriad treatment options. It's true that she'd have to pay out of pocket and/or rely on whatever insurance she happened to have. But in a truly free-market system, health-care-related prices would be dramatically lower than prices in our existing system, due to the proper functioning of competition. Even if she couldn't afford her treatments, she's still have many options. She could borrow money, ask for donations, and/or rely on non-profit, charitable medical organizations.

Now consider the freedom of choice available to someone who's career goal is to work in the health-care industry. In a purely socialized system, her only option would be to become an employee of the government. Suppose that--for whatever reason--the government wouldn't hire her, or the pay and/or working conditions didn't appeal to her. She'd be out of luck. In a free-market system, however, she'd have a vast array of choices. She could apply for a jobs with a large number of for-profit or non-profit medical organizations. Or, if she was an entrepreneurial person, she could start her own organization.

Some may believe that these kinds of restrictions on freedom are a small price to pay for achieving such goals as universal health care for everyone. Unfortunately, they are not, as anyone who's had direct experience with them can attest. The lack of personal freedom inherent in socialism constitutes an intolerable violation of our most basic individual rights. The free market is the only economic system capable of upholding our "unalienable Rights" to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Health care in the US (debate with E), part 2

A continuation of the health-care debate I've been having with my friend, E:

E: ...with regard to health care costs and your allegation that their cause is "massive" government "interference" with the providers of it:

It is hard to believe that these Godless Communist countries with "socialized" health care have LESS regulation than we do.  Since their governments control large sectors (or all) of their respective delivery systems, it would be fair to say that the systems in these countries are much, much more regulated by their governments than ours is.  Yet they spend far less per-capita than we do, despite all this "massive" government "interference".  This observation includes first-world countries with first-world health services.

Link to table

Despite our relative lack of health-care regulation, we still spend far more than the nearest country or any of the "socialized" medical-care countries.

At the very least this fact seems to destroy the "health care is expensive here because of massive government interference" argument.

JCB: The countries with completely socialized health care hold costs down by means of strict rationing. That's why I much prefer our current system to alternatives such as the Canadian system. Of course, our system is probably completely unsustainable in its current form. We're either going to have to radically deregulate and desocialize our system or transition to a completely socialized/rationed system. The former option would be far superior in every way. Unfortunately, the latter is much more likely to happen.

E: And we hold down costs by means of strict rationing too. But our rationing is based simply on how poor you are. Which of course works in our favor as well as in the favors of people yet higher up the wealth ladder. "Poor, too bad, you can't afford health care, too too bad for you loser. You should have had good genetics and good (i.e. wealthy) parents and grown up somewhere that encouraged the good sense that I have."  "Unlucky you. No MRI. Die." Rationing. Brutal, class-wide rationing.

JCB: People not buying what they can't afford is not what is normally referred to as rationing. But, no matter. Whatever we choose to call it, it's obviously a serious problem. The key point, however, is that it's not a problem that can be blamed on the free market, since--as Goldhill shows--our health-care market is highly distorted by government interference.

E: I much prefer the Canadian system to alternatives such as our system. We are going to have to radically regulate and socialize our system, in the sense of providing a safe and deep "safety blanket" (by that I mean, making modern technologies and treatments just as available to the poor as to the rich). You know, the sort of thing we do with roads and schools and above all, the military. This option is far superior in every way, unfortunately with powerful status quo seeking to maintain profits, that's unlikely to happen, as we're currently seeing.

JCB: Transitioning to a purely socialist system may actually be preferable to keeping our existing system, since it'd at least allow us to control spending. Our existing health-care system is almost certainly economically unsustainable. Unfortunately, the quality of medical care available under a socialist system would of necessity be far inferior to what could be achieved were we to adopt a free-market approach. Why? Because excellent health care requires a high degree of innovation and hard work by highly-skilled, dedicated workers. A free market is the only known economic system capable of providing the kinds of incentives required to consistently motivate people to achieve high levels of excellence in their work. Socialist government bureaucracies, conversely, are not generally renowned for their ability to inspire excellence.

You mentioned roads and the military. I'd be in favor of as much privatization of roads as is practical. The cleanest, best-maintained freeways I've ever driven on were privately-owned toll roads, such as those found in Orange County, CA. Many government-operated roads are notorious for being poorly maintained, with lots of trash, potholes, graffiti, etc. As for the military, that of necessity has to be controlled by the government. At least I don't see a practical way to avoid that. However, a system of private contractors operating in a competitive, free-market environment is the most efficient means of producing the highest-quality military equipment.

I just noticed that you also mentioned the issue of socialized schools. The record of government-run schools is spotty, at best. The dysfunctional nature of many of our public schools provides further evidence of the inherent inability of socialized systems to consistently provide high-quality services. I believe that a more free-market approach to schools would vastly improve the quality of education available in this country.

Health care in the US (debate with E), part 1

(This is a continuation of a thread that began as a discussion of drug patents with my friend E. However, I decided to change the title, since the original topic has morphed into a discussion of what's wrong with health care in the United States.)

JCB: Yes. Health care is ridiculously expensive in this country. The question is: Why is this the case?

E: Quite a few factors I'm sure.

JCB: Yes. I think it's due to a combination of factors, including extensive government interference in the market, an aging population, and lawsuit abuse in a legal environment that favors plaintiffs.

E: One would seem to be clearly the unmitigated greed of the insurance industry and the drug industry (in other words, the free market going where it always goes for other than commodities).

JCB: The problem I have with this explanation is that the health-care sector doesn't have a monopoly on greed. Pretty much all of us are greedy. I'm a greedy engineer working for an unmitigatedly greedy multinational consulting corporation. Yet my salary and the rates [my employer] charges its customers have risen at about the same rate as overall inflation. Other than health care and higher education (another industry suffering from massive government interference), I can't think of a single example of an industry for which the average inflation rate has been consistently so much higher than the overall inflation rate. There may be some of which I'm unaware. Let me know if you can think of any.

E: Another would the fact that the relationship is so bizarre between customers (including companies trying to offer benefits), the insurance industry, and care providers.

JCB: That's a great point. But what is the source of this bizarreness? Is it the free market and the unmitigated greed of the health-care industry? If so, why haven't such bizarrely dysfunctional relationships evolved in other similarly-greedy yet less-heavily-regulated (i.e., more free-market) industries?

E: It's more than I can understand but I'll try to find that really good article that I think I was telling you about.  The author thought that insurance should be just that - insurance against catastrophic events, rather than a product that paid for every little evaluation or treatment.

JCB: That's a great idea. If people would self-insure as much as possible, they'd be much more sensitive to costs and competition would drive prices down.

E: He made the analogy to car insurance, which doesn't pay for your oil changes and people don't expect it to.

JCB: Good analogy.

E: If I recall correctly he also thinks that private insurance companies are corrupt and part of the problem, not the solution.

JCB: I'll have to read the article. I'm certainly no fan of the insurance industry as a whole. The sales pitches used by a lot of life-insurance salespeople, for example, are deceptive to the point that they border on fraud or may actually be fraudulent. Bank on Yourself is one such sales pitch I've encountered recently. Yet, rates for non-health-care-related insurance (i.e., life, homeowners, auto, etc.) have not risen faster than overall inflation, as far as I know. So I doubt that insurance-industry corruption could be an important root cause of the health-care-inflation problem. However, it could be that a higher-than-normal level of corruption has resulted from the massive government interference in the health-care market.