Universal Coverage Means Suppressing Human Choice Even if by
some miracle Obamacare was able to deliver on its promises, it
is still not clear that universal coverage would be a laudable
achievement. In fact, the exact opposite is true. What
Efficiency Is and Is Not To properly address the merits of
universal coverage, we must first establish exactly what we as
economists consider ideal. Any college freshman can easily cite
the promotion of "efficiency" as the ultimate goal of economics,
but contemporary political economists profoundly lack an
understanding of what it actually means for a market to function
efficiently. A market is said to be "efficient" when its
producers and consumers are acting cost-effectively; in other
words, when they are economizing on their scarce resources.
Consumers are said to be acting efficiently when they choose to
consume only those goods and services that most please them. It
is easy to see that individual consumption decisions are the
only method by which consumer welfare can