Free Market Solution to Health Care

In an article on Texas Insider written by David Limbaugh, the brother of Rush Limbaugh, called "Free Market Solutions the Key to Health Care Reform", David puts his full faith in the free market system to come up with fair and affordable solutions to health care. He argues that "competition and free markets are the best avenues to economic prosperity, liberty and, in the case of health care, accessibility, affordability and quality."

I agree with him when he says that the end goal should be quality, affordable health care, and not simply larger numbers insured, but my faith that the free market will just work it all out is not as strong as his. I would be surprised if he wasn't one of the "just don't buy an iPhone and you'll be able to afford medical bills" crowd, but then what else would I expect from Rush Limbaugh's brother? He doesn't seem to understand what being poor is really like, and sometimes I get a real "survival of the fittest" vibe from this sort of logic. He worries that by helping people in any kind of "socialistic" way, we're hurting their ability to help themselves, or encouraging them to be lazy, or preventing them from learning how to budget. I wish it was that simple, that being good with money and working hard will pay off and make you financially secure, but that's usually just not reality, and it's becoming even less so. It's a romantic American fantasy that Republicans will probably never put to rest.

 This is of course written for a conservative audience, and I understand how it could be easy to read something like this and agree, as it comes off as sounding like a smart and sober, realistic approach to dealing with things. He admits that he doesn't pretend to be an expert on the specifics, and neither am I, but having a radically different experience with life than him makes it hard to see how this would really work. Medical care is absurdly expensive without insurance, and I know many people who were never able to afford it before the ACA. They say "let the free market work it out" and then turn around and try to de-fund one of the few places that provide basic affordable healthcare to low-income women. It's hard to feel like they have everyone's best interests in mind when they only think in terms of business. I suppose this is a case of two completely different experiences, two completely different viewpoints.