Yeah, what Alex Singleton said:
Where there is only ‘voice’, we are told that we have to wait our turn. We are told to take into account the requirements of other consumers. We are told to be grateful for what we have.
‘Exit’ is much better than ‘voice’. This is because market forces work. Public sector altruism doesn’t. As Adam Smith said: “Public services are never better performed than when their reward comes in consequence of their being performed, and is proportional to the diligence employed in performing them.”
I have been a consumer of Adam Smith Institute materials for many a year, and do not link to their blog as often as I should, for I frequently find their commentary interesting, insightful, and incisive, to be alliterative about it.
As we slog, seemingly inexorably, toward the “fiery hell” of a single-payer national health care system in the US, we would do well to remember that we will surrender the “exit” option; and that, as a result, our “voice” will be as of “one crying out in the wilderness”.
As one within reach of “Social Security” and within sight of “Medi(s)care”, I view the loss of the “exit” option with great trepidation. While doctors in the US today have the option to “exit” Medicare by not taking Medicare patients, a “comprehensive”(sic) national health care system would effectively preclude that option. We would then have the same opportunity to wait up to a year for cancer surgery (which by then is often not worth performing, or worse would require exhumation), as is the case in the British NHS; or, the opportunity to wait up to 25 months for elective surgery, as is the case in the Irish system. I know where Canadians come to escape their system, but where would we go?
Adam Smith is undoubtedly turning in his grave at rotisserie speed over the current situation in the US’ government schools, in which current practice and political intent seem focused on funding and compensation in inverse proportion to measurable performance. Valuing mediocrity is one thing; encouraging abject failure is quite another! The “tolerance” of “voice” in government schools is very limited; the fear of the “exit” option (vouchers) is palpable.
Whether regarding national health care or government schools, we would be wise to contemplate Einstein’s definition of insanity as “continuing to do the same things and expecting different results”. Pursuing national health care (based on the “howling success” of Medicare)and continuing to throw money at failing schools are insane.
please what is more powerful than knowledge?