One of the ways to identify where corruption exists is by noticing where pricing either is opaque or doesn’t make sense. Is that more true anywhere than in medicine?
The standard response to absurd prices in medicine is suggesting regulation and oversight.
More rules = more enforcement = more bureacracy = more corruption. And more difficulty in nimble, creative thinking solving problems in new ways.
Government involvement doesn’t solve corruption, it fertilizes it. Sunshine, the ability to judge quality and shop competitively, removes opportunities for graft, abuse and corruption. Not that we don’t need regulatory agencies. But in medicine we would be asking them to make shopping decisions for us. That can never work. Patients must have enough honest information to know better than to be governed by whatever happens to be in fashion for medicine to do to patients now.
I’ve only just begun to write about it here, and I’m not much inclined to continue. Enumerating the problems is of marginal benefit at this time.
Transparency International is a site about corruption.