Milton Friedman on Medicine and health care
You hear all the time the argument that medical care is so expensive that you cannot expect the ordinary person to finance it. Well, there are two things wrong with that. First of all, who finances it if government finances it? It’s the ordinary people. Government doesn’t have any money with which to finance anything. All government has is a monopoly on force. And, therefore, the power to take money out of some people’s pockets and use it for purposes that are determined by government.
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. The second thing wrong with the argument, he goes on, is that it misrepresents how large medical spending is.
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Milton Friedman, “The Market and Human Freedom” (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”, 1981), Congressional Record, September 9, 1981, p. 19997. https://miltonfriedman.org/quotes/government-doesnt-have-any-money-monopoly-force-1981
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He also said
I do not believe there is any case whatsoever for government’s financing ordinary medical care of a private patient. The cost of financing ordinary medical care is well within the means of ordinary families in most of our countries. Certainly so far as the more expensive, unusual forms of medical care the appropriate method of financing those is insurance just as that is the appropriate mechanism for financing other large risks.
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. Directly after allowing a role for government in helping people in dire distress. He goes on to say that insurance is the appropriate way to finance the more expensive, unusual forms of care.
The Market and Human FreedomSpeech, 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. 19997Checked against the sourceRead the originalWell the first and most important reform would be to eliminate the tax exemption of employer-provided medical care. … There’s no reason and logic, no reason on principle why medical care should be treated differently from other things. Food is just as essential to the life and health of a child. So is shelter and clothing. But those things we more or less let the private market take care of. What differentiates health? You might say, “Well, there are large costs involved. Sometimes you have to have big operations.” Well that’s what the private insurance is for. You have a large cost in a fire in a building. But that doesn’t mean that we have government fire 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.” Asked how he would reform the U.S. health-care system if he could ignore political realities. The ellipsis marks Robinson’s follow-up (“You’d do that before abolishing Medicare and Medicaid.”) and Friedman’s “Yes.”
How to Cure Health CareInterview, 2005, Interview by Peter Robinson for the World Health Congress, November 21, 2005; printed in Hoover Digest 2006 No. 4Checked against the sourceRead the transcriptIn an ordinary free market business—let’s take potatoes, beef, anything you want—there are thousands of importers and exporters. Anybody can go into the business. But it’s very hard for a small person to go into the drug importing business because our interdiction efforts essentially make it enormously costly. So, the only people who can survive in that business are these large Medellin cartel kind of people who have enough money so they can have fleets of airplanes, so they can have sophisticated methods, and so on. … What more could a monopolist want? He’s got a government who makes it very hard for all his competitors and who keeps the price of his products high. It’s absolutely heaven.
Context. From a television interview about the war on drugs. Friedman has just said that, from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel; asked whether it is doing a good job of it, he answers “Excellent” and explains. The ellipsis leaves out a sentence saying that by keeping goods out and arresting local marijuana growers, the government keeps the price of these products high.
America’s Drug Forum interviewInterview, 1991, With Randy Paige, taped at the International Conference on Drug Policy Reform, Washington, November 1991; reprinted as Ch. 8 “On Liberty and Drugs” in Friedman & Szasz on Liberty and Drugs, ed. Arnold S. Trebach and Kevin B. Zeese (Drug Policy Foundation Press, 1992), p. 72Checked against the sourceFind the book
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