Free market health care is alive and well at the Surgery Center of Oklahoma
Health care in the United States has been under a lot of government interference and oversight since the Great Society and since that time, prices have skyrocketed.
Surgical instruments
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Today, US health care is on the fast track to heading to a single payer system with the chaos surrounding the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare surely a precursor to total government run health care.
People who promote Obamacare and the single payer system, like to say that the freemarket let health care down.
Thing is, there is little about the US health care system that is truly free market, and its been that way for a long time.
However, at one surgical center in Oklahoma City, free market principles are strictly adhered to making it an affordable, efficient and successful.
On the Saturday, Nov. 2 airing of Dispatch Radio, I had the opportunity to talk to the Managing Partner and Medical Director of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, Dr. G. Keith Smith (Listen below).
Dr. Smith described the philosophy behind the Surgery Center and how it operates.
The key feature is the website http://www.surgerycenterok.com/ where consumers of surgical services can go there, select the surgery they need, and the price is clearly stated.
Smith said his prices are six to 10 times cheaper than the same surgery at the hospitals in the same city.
The Surgery Center of Oklahoma is a bright spot that needs to be emulated to bring health care costs down.
[…] LISTEN: My interview with Dr. Smith about the Surgery Center of Oklahoma and free market health care […]
[…] LISTEN: My interview with Dr. Smith about the Surgery Center of Oklahoma and free market health care […]
Interesting. Most insurers try to negotiate special deals with hospitals which of course drives up the cost for everyone else, plus the cost of charity care has to be recouped, but 6 to 10x lower? Wow. I suspect the Surgery Center has more going for it than just its price structure. Dollars to doughnuts they’ve minimized unneeded bureaucracy as well.