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Yesterday, June 12, at 3:36am, Anna joined our world as the second of our children. While my wife was scheduled for an induction, she had begun pre-labor earlier in the day, and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. The delivery went well, and both mommy and baby are great.
But this wouldn’t be a typical post if I didn’t make economic comments about the experience. As I sat looking around the hospital room, eyeing up the equipment, monitors, listening to the knowledge of the nurses and midwife, and watching my wife deliver with virtually no pain at all because of modern medicine, it occurred to me that whoever researched, produced, invented, or otherwise contributed to the technology we have today in the medical field, they sure deserve whatever millions of profits they’ve received. To think that if every medical researcher and doctor simply did things in the spirit of pure altruism, then the medical field would be a better place, is just pure stupidity. I honestly don’t care if the team who developed the epidural were greedy people; they became wealthy by providing something that women in labor have wanted throughout history.
I literally got tears in my eyes thinking about the progress that we’ve made in the United States because of the free market, and because people have had the freedom to invent, develop, and produce things that are good for society, are what people want, and provide a profitable venture. As privileged as this next comment mind sound coming from a white male, health care is not a fundamental human right, it is a luxury. Now, I’m a big fan of making health care affordable for as many people as possible, which is why a free market provides the quickest way to the production of goods and services that make possible luxuries for the masses. 200 years ago, presidents and prime ministers didn’t share in the wealth and luxury we have today. The free market has been the most productive, efficient, and progressive means of providing luxuries for as many people as possible at the fastest rate in human history. The shame is not that some people are unable to receive some of those luxuries; the shame is that most people who think it’s a shame want to make it even more difficult for society to progress toward making it easier for the poorest among us to take advantage of such luxuries.
Speaking of luxuries, lemme get back to my new daughter… she’s got beautiful eyes.
