Jim

Take drug prices, for example. Either the British and Canadians would have to begin paying some of the fixed costs, or new drug development would halt completely. I wonder which would happen first?

Reducing reimbursement rates will not bring down costs. An accountant may believe that but a good economist knows better.

The problem with so-called “market forces” such as private health insurance/HMOs is that it has screwed both doctors and patients, too. Managed care has achieved oligopsonistic power in most big cities. The reality is that political leaders of all persuasions have decided that doctors make too much money and patients get too much care. So they are “fixin” to pass laws to pay doctors less and ration care with a vengeance. It’s going to be great for the insurance execs who do the dirty work for the politicians. As I suggested many years ago, time to read Robert Jay Lifton’s The Genocidal Mentality. The elderly many “ethicists” have concluded lead lives not worth living. There will be plenty of doctors with a lot of medical school debt and political ambition to do their political bidding.

Regarding Krugman’s argument, it’s déjà vu all over again. I agree with yours and Mankiw’s arguments, but I think you are working too hard.

See my editorial – which made the rounds on capital hill in the last health care revolution scare and put an end to alliance language within in days – for a more direct argument to the same effect.

My assessment of the Noble prizes is that it a political prize.

If you look at the list of prior names, people like Arrow and Friedman, it’s clear that it hasn’t always been. Maybe an outspoken progressive with a regular column in the Times was just too much for the committee to resist. It’s about what I would have expected for the Peace Prize.