Dr. Michel Accad: Why Can't We Pay Cash for Doctors?

Tags: Health

10/23/2015 Michel Accad, MD

Dr. Michel Accad is a practicing cardiologist who blogs for a medical audience at alertandoriented.com. He's written several articles about healthcare for mises.org, and you won't find many MDs as well versed in Austrian economics.

Dr. Accad talks about practicing medicine in the Age of Obamacare, where every symptom and every treatment must fit into an insurance company code. Doctors are miserable, in debt like never before, and slaves to billing systems that consume their time. Worst of all, they've become de facto employees rather than trusted protectors of their patients' well-being.

Without rational market pricing, will the system simply devolve until it collapses? Will a completely state-run system, like those in the UK or Canada, emerge in the US? Or will doctors at the vanguard of open pricing and cash for treatment become a viable alternative?

What is the Mises Institute?

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.

Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

Become a Member