To the extent you take profits away from that community, by whatever means, you end up with lesser performance here.
You're making an assumption there that may not be valid. There are a variety of ways to respond to competition, some of them very positive in terms of quality. If people start going to the new medical facility on the other side of the tracks, the facilities losing business can improve efficiency, consolidate, focus, and generally improve their product in response. I don't see how you get more expensive drugs out of that. As for fewer physicians, well, you have fewer patients so having fewer physicians is a feature, not a fault.
However, if you want significantly lower health care costs in America the way you'll get it is by cutting the quality of care we receive here.
If some people utilize a facility that costs less, then you have reduced the country's health costs. Sure, there's a point which it is destructive to reduce the number of patients by diverting them. You need enough patients to get economies of scale and maintain an infrastructure. But industries slimming down by ten or twenty percent can make for a healthier industries. |
