Yes, when health care services become free at the point of service,
expressible demand increases. This is because those who could not previously afford to pay for preventative care and elective surgery (they are not currently denied emergency care) are finally able to express their demand for those important services. When "
prices are not used to determine a value for a service" then other, rather obvious means are used to determine the same thing. It is a rather simple matter to calculate the amount of resources that need to be allocated toward the National Health Service by simply adding up the total costs of the labor and equipment that would be needed to satisfy demand (i.e., eliminate long lines for services like elective surgery).
Matching supply to demand in a Socialized Medicine World is simply a matter of hiring more doctors and skilled professionals and buying more equipment and building more facilities. If enough of these resources are purchased, then supply will eventually match demand and waiting lists for elective surgery would shrink to what we basically see today. So the contention advanced by DeaconBlue---that "there is no way to match supply and demand without the information provided by prices"---is simply false.
What is the price of health care if no prices are charged at the point of service? Well, the `price' that health care consumers would end up having to pay for Socialized Medicine services would show up on the day that they receive their tax bill. If you have a progressive income tax system, that means that citizens will be charged for their medical services on an `ability to pay' basis. Those who earn more income are charged a higher price for medical services than those who earn less income. It's an approach that would largely achieve the ideal of Perfect Price Discrimination that is mentioned in most microeconomics textbooks.
A certain amount of Price Discrimination occurs in the health care industry today. Physicians charge fees that their wealthiest and best-insured customers can afford to pay. The debts that their poorer patients cannot afford to pay are ultimately just written off. The result is that richer people pay more for their health care than poorer people do. The higher fees that the wealthy pay effectively `subsidize'---to a certain extent---the care that poorer citizens receive. It is a mistake, however to interpret this to mean that the wealthy would necessarily be paying more money for the same health care product.
There will always be a problem with scarcity in the production of health care services. New technology cannot be made everywhere available, all at once. When supply does not match demand for elective procedures, lines form. These lines can be eliminated by charging a high enough price to drive all of the poorer people out of the market, but that doesn't eliminate the real demand. The ultimate answer to the problem of `excess demand' is increased supply, but there are always going to be some medical procedures/physicians/services that are more scarce than others. What can be done about these waiting lists/lines?
A wisely designed national health care system could solve this problem by allowing wealthy Americans to offer those at the 'front of the line' money to trade places in line with them (or to sell their position on a renowned physician's patient list). Bidding could be arranged for by the state list-keepers as a 'customer service.' It's an idea I like because it gives every citizen an equal right to be the next-in-line to receive health care services (when emergency considerations are not involved), giving them a morally-based entitlement that emphasizes and celebrates their inherent equality as human beings when it comes to health matters. At the same time, it still allows the wealthy to get the highest-quality services that they want, when it is extremely important to them.
The one thing that the wealthy fear the most about Socialized Medicine is having to wait in line like everyone else. Under the open-auction process I'm advocating, this ignominy would not be imposed on them. Those who give up their place in line for an elective procedure would at least be compensated for the sacrifice they are asked to take. Sounds a lot like a market solution to me. The wealthy would end up paying a lot for their enjoyment of higher-quality health care within a Socialist Medicine system, but they would also have the satisfaction of knowing that they are making possible a great gift to the poor and working classes.
Ultimately, wealthy critics of Socialized Medicine do not have a leg to stand on. Not only would they not have to give up their current claim on the 'best medical services available' if we were to turn to Socialized Medicine, it can also be shown that the higher taxes they'd pay would not actually impose any real sacrifice on them in terms of lost purchasing power. But that's another subject...
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