There are three things the price of
which modern enlightened people are continually griping about: medicine,
education, and children. Yet it seems that these three are about the only
things that cannot be afforded today.
While searching for a private
clinic where to get a procedure done speedily (successfully: reduced my wait time
from 90 days to 24 hours) I ran across this article from February:
Five of Toronto’s most
exclusive private medical clinics
Private health care,
once taboo, has become a status symbol for those who can afford it. From
anti-aging to Alzheimer’s, here are five of the city’s most sought-after
clinics
One thing stood out to me: the
prices.
The article calls these clinics ‘exclusive’,
only ‘for those who can afford it’, ‘a status symbol’. I think that would be a
common reaction—above all among the class most familiar to me, graduate
students and academics.
But consider the prices: $2,595 for
a health assessment. $3,300 a year for doctors available round-the-clock,
including weekends and holidays. $1,500 for a health assessment and a year of
ongoing care.
These aren’t pocket change. But regular
folks afford things a lot more expensive than this every day. As Bruce Charlton
says, “People spend many years and 100Ks of dollars on worthless and unused
college degrees… They spend 1000 dollars a year on their hair, 10,000 dollars
on holidays, 30,000 dollars on a wedding party, 20,000 on a better car than
they need, tens of thousands on divorces...”
Actually, these ‘exclusive, status
symbol’ medical clinics are already within the financial reach of most of us—even
the long-suffering graduate students. We can afford a few thousand dollars: I
know we can because we do—we spend it on cars, clothes, travel, and so on. It’s
not that we cannot afford this kind of health care, it’s simply that it is not
our priority.
In truth these clinics are not
exclusive to the ultra-rich. They are exclusive to the people who are willing
to spend money on medicine. Likewise for the good schools. Likewise for having
children. Most of the big families I know bring in small incomes—but they
afford children because children are their priority. Not holidays in Spain.
It’s a cliché to talk about the
consumerism that the free market encourage. But I think the welfare state is
more to blame for consumerism. Socialist policies like tax-funded healthcare,
education, and childcare have done this. Because they have removed from the
individual the responsibility to take thought for these things, to prioritize
and earn and set aside money for medicine, for schools, for raising children. If
we don’t have to spend money on these things, what are we supposed to spend it
on? What is money even for?
If you take away health, education,
and children, then money becomes by necessity mainly for gadgets, for toys, for
expensive distractions, for status symbols…
And the sad irony is that, at the same
time that people feel entitled to get (for free!) the world’s best medical care,
they content themselves with the shabby product the State is willing to dole
out to them. When the good stuff—good, responsive medical care—is out there, they
don’t take it! Because of the welfare state, they aren’t willing to pay for it.
But what is money for?! Why have money if you won't spend it on your health! People are shocked and indignant about hospital bills for tens of thousands of dollars. But I'd give up a lot of holidays in the Caribbean to get a good surgeon to do my triple bypass! I'd go without a car for a decade, and be happy about it, to buy the best education for my kids. Why else have money? Medical care is not a scandal to spend money on: medical care is a good thing to spend money on! Even going into debt
Ironically the entitlement state
creates an attitude of poverty. High-quality medical care? Can’t afford it. The
best schools? Can’t afford ‘em. The pitter-patter of little feet? Can’t afford
it.
Our welfare entitlements have
become shortages. We live like England in the Second World War—we take our
scrap of rations, like it or lump it.
In the most affluent society in
history, where the normal, average person can afford to spend thousands of
dollars on skydiving, trips to Disneyworld, giant weddings, cars, condos…
Medicine, education, and children are the only things we can’t afford.
***
This post picks up on Bruce G.
Charlton’s excellent comments here:
"We have been living in the
most prosperous circumstances in history, but say children cannot be
afforded. People spend many years and
100Ks of dollars on worthless and unused college degrees, but say children
cannot be afforded. They spend 1000
dollars a year on their hair, 10,000 dollars on holidays, 30,000 dollars on a
wedding party, 20,000 on a better car than they need, tens of thousands on
divorces... Apparently the *only* thing
that is just too inconvenient and too expensive in the modern world, is
children. The fact is that modern
women, modern people, could have successfully raised more children than at any
time in history - if it had been a priority.
But it wasn't."
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