Ideologue looks at medicine - evidence, not so much

There is so much pure ideology running through David Leyonjhelm's take on medicine, I really don't know why anyone takes him seriously.   (I'm looking at you, Jason Soon.)

His whole comparison of doctors being like car mechanics ignores things like, oh, how not everyone needs a car mechanic, but every single person needs a variety of medical services during their life; and the almost universally accepted view that the more privatised US system has helped make for an unhealthier population at greater expense.  And what's with this line?:

Opposing the Government’s proposal [for co-payments] in its entirety will only maintain a situation where the well-off and healthy receive the same level of medical support as the poor and chronically ill, a level that is inadequate for those most in need.

While I accept that some highly socialised medical systems in other countries do have co-payments, I would still like to see the evidence that a "price signal" is really needed in Australia.  As I have noted before (although I forget which expert said it), the rate of use of GPs here is not unusually high  compared to other countries, and the increasing cost in the health system is not coming from there.

Leyonjhlem goes on to have his ideological fantasies about how medicine could work:

In an ideal world we would shop for health services based on quality and price, protected from unaffordable costs by insurance. The government’s role would be limited to ensuring that the poor and chronically ill are insured, and collecting and publishing information about the providers to help us make better choices.

The bald one also seems to think that if people have too much access to doctors, they don't take responsibility for their own health via diet, exercise, etc.  Yet I'd be pretty sure that in those areas of Australia with less access to doctors do not show such an effect at all.   I imagine this is because doctors help identify health problems earlier, and thereby increase the general health of the population.   David's just off on one of his ideological day dreams again.

Libertarians never get want fully they want, because most people can readily recognise that their ideas won't and don't work.