I used to never see two G trains in a row at the Carroll Street station, but I would often see two, or even three, F trains coming before the G did. "Why," I wondered, "are there so many more F trains than G trains?"
That was when I was riding the G. Now I take the F... and I never see two Fs in a row. For the same reason that lost things are always in "the last place you look for them"... because once you find them, you stop looking. And once your train comes, you stop waiting. So you only ever see the other guy's train come several times in a row.
Believe it or not, I'm actually in agreement with you on much of this topic. Where I think you err, rather, is this: in modern policy, patients are already seen as customers, and most policy debates hinge on whether to treat them as customers this way vs. that way. None of the major proposals (including those of Krugman, who IIRC you cited as showing outrage at the idea of seeing patients as customers) would change this.
ReplyDeleteSo it seems like a red herring: if you have an idea that would bring about a paradigm shift away from patient-as-customer, bring it up, but otherwise, the criticism is irrelevant. (One example of someone doing it right is Kevin Carson, who has concrete proposals for "mutualist medicine" and how it would bring back the social aspect of care.)
And, not that it matters, but actually practicing non-monetary mutualist medicine would contract GDP...