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Milton Friedman on Medicine and health care

I’m old enough to have participated in the medical system before World War II. And there was no third party. And the most obvious difference is when you went to a doctor or a hospital, the first question you were asked before the war was, “What’s wrong with you?” When you go to a hospital or a doctor now, what they ask is, “What’s your insurance?”

Context. From a November 2005 interview with Peter Robinson, conducted for the World Health Congress and printed in the Hoover Digest as “How to Cure Health Care.” Discussing why most American medical bills are paid by third parties, insurers and government, rather than by patients.

How to Cure Health Care
Interview, 2005, Interview by Peter Robinson for the World Health Congress, November 21, 2005; printed in Hoover Digest 2006 No. 4
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Milton Friedman, “How to Cure Health Care” (Interview by Peter Robinson for the World Health Congress, November 21, 2005; printed in Hoover Digest 2006 No. 4, 2005). https://miltonfriedman.org/quotes/before-war-whats-wrong-now-whats-your-insurance-2005

Quoted for commentary and research. Rights in the underlying work remain with its rights holder, so cite the work itself, not only this page.

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He also said

  1. Two simple observations are key to explaining both the high level of spending on medical care and the dissatisfaction with that spending. The first is that most payments to physicians or hospitals or other caregivers for medical care are made not by the patient but by a third party—an insurance company or employer or governmental body. The second is that nobody spends somebody else’s money as wisely or as frugally as he spends his own.

    Context. From an article on why American spending on medical care rose so fast after World War II, which he traces to third-party payment: the tax exemption of employer-provided care and the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965.

    How to Cure Health Care
    Column, 2001, Hoover Digest 2001 No. 3; a shorter version of his essay in The Public Interest, Winter 2001
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  2. The subtle and sophisticated people who fill the newspaper columns and the airwaves with such silly explanations of the gasoline shortage seem never to have asked themselves the obvious question: why is it that for a century and more before 1971, there were no energy crises, no gasoline shortages, no problems about fuel oil—except during World War II?

    Context. From a June 1979 Newsweek column, written during the second oil-shock gasoline lines, arguing that the shortage was caused by federal price controls on crude oil and petroleum products in force since August 1971.

    Blaming the Obstetrician
    Column, 1979, Newsweek (June 4, 1979); reprinted in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, pp. 14007 to 14008, introduced by Representative G. William Whitehurst of Virginia. The running head reads June 7, 1979, which is the issue; the entry’s own dateline reads Wednesday, June 6, 1979, which is when he spoke., Congressional Record, June 7, 1979, p. 14008
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  3. I have argued against the licensure of physicians before the board of directors of the American Medical Association and had one of the most vituperative, the most argumentative evenings I have ever had. But, your endorsement of that is fascinating because I think physicians everywhere and people everywhere are coming to realize the truth of that old saying that if you’re going to sup with the devil you better have a very long spoon. And licensure is not a long enough spoon. It has been a major source of the problem.

    Context. From a talk to physicians, published in Private Practice in July 1981, on the trend toward government control of medicine and the prospects for reversing it. Responding to the audience’s applause for his call for no government licensure of physicians.

    The Market and Human Freedom
    Speech, 1981, Private Practice (July 1981); reprinted in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, September 9, 1981, pp. 19996 to 19997, introduced by Representative Larry McDonald of Georgia as “Professor Friedman’s recent article on this subject” in “Private Practice magazine for July 1981”, Congressional Record, September 9, 1981, p. 19997
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