Food vs health: the government can't have it both ways!

[Previously posted on Google's BlogSpot by Keith Murray, August 9, 2009]

On August 8, the Wall Street Journal ran an article that noted that the Obama administration plans to examine the level of concentration in the U.S. agricultural sector as part of an elevated focus on antitrust enforcement. Indeed, the Obama administration confirmed this in a public statement. Writes WSJ's Scott Kilman: "Philip J. Weiser, a telecommunications-law expert who was recently named deputy assistant attorney general, told a farmer gathering here that federal antitrust regulators are 'committed to examining' the level of competition in several agribusiness sectors, such as the marketing of genetically modified seed, dairy processing and meatpacking."

What's interesting about this keen interest by the current administration to antitrust enforcement is the blatant double-standard it has with something similarly as essential to Americans' existence--health care. One has to question the sincerity of the political class by preserving the economic freedoms in one vital arena of ordinary life and not another, equally important.

It would be hard to argue that consumers' right to quality, competitively priced health care is categorically any less essential--certainly at an practical level--than food products; yet with commitment by public policy makers to pursue competitive safeguards in one realm and not the other, points to some startling conclusions:

1. Current federal policy that claims to protectconsumers is, at best, flawed, and, at worst, devious. The current government has shown an expressed interest in dominating the health care market--by eliminating all competitive mechanisms--yet, on the other hand, bolstering an antitrust focus on food producers and vendors that, in effect, cripples the strong, dominant players who provide essential products. In the service of consumers in the U.S. both of these stances are, on their face, incompatible and contradictory.

2. There seems to be a failure on the part of government to appreciate market mechanisms that work to enhance the creation and evolution of valuable goods and services. The present administration can't have it both ways with essential goods and services--either competition is a good thing or it is not; it can't be seen to be work one way in one essential sector and not the other.

3. Evidence of a strong, anti-free-enterprise bias seems to be emerging that serves the interests of government intervention and dominance at the expense of support for competitive forces. In all arenas were the procurement of goods and services by consumers are concerned [prime examples of which would include, hospitals, Amtrak, USPS], the quality of services is categorically inferior. Yet much of what the current administration seems hell-bent on doing seems to support government involvement at the expense of free-market forces--the GM bail-out, take-over of the health care system, management of private banking companies.

Undermining market forces by any administration is a bad idea--the apparent inconsistent meddling and mischief-making by the current political class is particularly troublesome to business and, in turn, consumers. Pick your industry of choice--auto, food, financial services, or health care--public policy makers can't have it both ways at the same time and still be expected--logically or practically--to get it right.