Inefficiency, Errors, Rotten Service: Free Market at "Work" in Health Care

Our legislature is pretty much ignoring health care this session (thanks for all your time, Zaniya Project members). Funny how the big issues don't get any attention from the Legislature, or at best, as with education, get pushed back to the frenzied end.

Maybe the legislators are just afraid to face the ugly fact that the free market is simply sinking health care into a deeper and deeper crisis. I know, free marketeers, worldview change can be hard to take. But here's another gentle reminder that the free market is not the solution to all of problems, courtesy of Dr. Sheila Suess Kennedy. No egghead abstractions from this Indiana University professor of law and public policy, just a story about how her new health insurance provider lost her paperwork and couldn't fill her prescriptions:

When I went on line to order, there was no sign of my prescriptions. I called the customer service line and got a recorded message telling me that they were "experiencing unusually high call volumes, with very long waits." The message suggested I call back. So I did, and got the same message. Eight times, over six weeks, by which time I was running out of medications.

I emailed three times; no response. (I did get a form reply a month after the first email.) So I waited on the phone for a "customer service" representative. When I explained I was unable to order online, she said, "Oh, the first time, you have to call." When I asked how I was supposed to know that, since it was information that appeared nowhere, she changed the subject. When I asked why call volume had been "unusual" for six weeks, she said it was always like that at the beginning of the year. (Evidently, hiring more people to handle this annual "unusual" volume hadn't occurred to them.)

She didn't know why my prescriptions hadn't been transferred. My doctor called in new ones. Still nothing. Another call, another hour. "Oh, our servers went down. Have your doctor call again." He did. Nothing. I finally went to my local pharmacy and shelled out the larger copay. When I have three hours to spare, I'll call again [Dr. Sheila Suess Kennedy, "Free-Falling in Health System," IndyStar.com, 2008.02.18]

"Insurance company overhead averages 25 percent," Dr. Kennedy points out. That extra dough goes toward executive salaries, ad campaigns, and vigorous lawyering aimed at finding new and improved ways to deny coverage to as many paying customers as possible. Dr. Kennedy concludes, "Could government possibly do worse?"

At least with government, we can vote the bums out.