Romney Care does cause longer wait times

Reader comment on: Turner on RomneyCare

Submitted by Joey Donuts (United States), May 13, 2011 17:40

Long wait times almost everywhere are a product of two things. Restrictions on entry into the medical fields by licensing requirements, including the AMA's sanctioning of medical schools and the wrong price signals for the cost of a doctor visit. Most people with health insurance and low co-payments see the cost of the visit as the co-payment + time and travel costs. Romney care increased the number of people seeing distorted costs and increased the demand for medical services. Given that there probably was some long wait time before the passage of the Romney care, one should see longer wait times after passage. Of course Turner doesn't make this comparison and doesn't shed much light on the issue. However, one can still criticize Romney care because it increased the number of people seeing distorted price signals. If someone had measured wait times before the passage, we would have the ability to empirically evaluate Romney care on that basis.

No one measured the wait times because no one saw that as a problem or at least not as big a problem as not enough people getting health care for less than it costs to produce. Silly voters, politicians and journalists.

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