In my blog post yesterday about our statist healthcare system and the need for more economic freedom, I referenced a NYT piece by Scott Gottleib and Zeke Emmanuel and argued that if their rosy view of America’s healthcare future has any chance of coming true, we’ll need far more economic freedom in the system than currently exists. Now Greg Scandlen has a sobering essay at the Federalist challenging the NYT piece, taking particular issue with their pointing to Massachusetts as a hopeful model and for suggesting that nurse practitioners will help make up the difference once Obamacare starts driving up demand for healthcare services.
Gottleib’s and Emmanuel’s argument had other elements, including a call for increased economic freedom for the healthcare industry, but on the Massachusetts point, Scandlen’s response appears devastating. In a nutshell, he notes that Massachusetts passed Obamacare-style reforms beginning seven years ago and now has much longer appointment waiting times than the rest of the country, despite having far more physicians per capita than the national average. Read the piece and the helpful data tables here.
