Here’s a note on healthcare, which hasn’t been in the spotlight, but Michael Steinberg at Click Broker provides evidence that healthcare is another area of a developing free market crisis. 
$700B for the Banks while Healthcare Crumbles under its Tarp
The free market idealists in the Bush White House finally conceded to an uncomfortable, but necessary and pragmatic approach to healing the financial system. The free market financial system collapsed under their previous convoluted attempts at patchwork repairs. Just like the uncoordinated fixes in the financial system, the American approach to healthcare has suffered more than its share of free market patches.
The Treasury, Federal Reserve and FDIC grudgingly admitted this morning (10/14/08) that the British and the Euro zone countries forced them into a systematic methodology of non-punitive equity purchases and guarantees to revive our banks. The United States would have to play ball or suffer capital flight to safer nations. Now it’s time to stop pretending that we have a free market healthcare system and learn how to distribute healthcare from the rest of the world.
In "Keep Remaining Blue Cross Non-profits", I wrote that health insurers of last resort were disappearing. Now The Wall Street Journal “Nonprofit Hospitals Leave The City for Greener Pastures” reports that large chains of non-profit hospitals are abandoning poor inner city neighborhoods for the more profitable suburbs. The Medicaid and uninsured patients are just not as desirable as patients with unlimited health insurance.
Healthcare equipment and service providers are increasingly facing a “you can run, but you cannot hide” scenario. General Electric’s (GE) imaging equipment sales are meeting resistance and UnitedHealth Group (UNH) is becoming increasingly dependent on the “socialist” government for Medicare membership. Private health insurance companies are having increasing difficulty selling their products to our citizens. The insurers have lost their value proposition. Who’s kidding who about a private enterprise free market healthcare system?
It appears that the Barack Obama Administration will drop the fake free market idealism and deploy pragmatic health insurance solutions. John McCain has learned nothing from Treasury Secretary Paulson’s struggles under the Bush Administration. It took a combination of the financial crisis reaching a crescendo and British pragmatism for Paulson to brake free. A dose of Goldman Sachs (GS) trouble didn’t hurt either. John McCain continues to search for that elusive free market healthcare solution that doesn’t exist.
Disclosures: Author is long GE and UNH.
