NYU has posted a video of a recent debate between Richard Epstein and Georgetown's Judy Feder about health care reform. You can watch the video here, and below is a sneak peek of Epstein's position, courtesy of the NYU website:
While agreeing with Feder that the system needed drastic fixes,
Epstein differed stridently on what was required. Arguing that
“cartel-like restrictions,” mandates, and subsidies in government
programs like Medicare had caused healthcare’s woes, Epstein said that
the current model of a system like Medicare was not tenable when
extended to the broader population: “If all you’re going to try to do
is to give everybody the same level of protection that you give to
current Medicare recipients, you’ll not be able to finance it with any
of the devices that she’s talking about.”
One of the primary problems, Epstein said, was that potential
competitors to existing insurance firms lack free entry into local
markets, resulting in insurance monopolies. He argued that Obama should
pass legislation to correct a “deeply anticompetitive system,” but
predicted that the administration would instead “buy off all the
interest groups with corrupt bargains” and introduce taxation and
cross-subsidy programs that “will bankrupt the nation.” The public
health plan option, Epstein continued, would be run by a “bunch of
blithering incompetents.... What you’re watching here is a grotesque
concatenation of every bad left-wing liberal policy in the last 40
years, and the time has come to stop it.” Epstein prescribed instead a
series of “mid-level rationalizations” involving medical malpractice
and price restriction issues, as well as the application of contract
law.
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