I choose free markets BECAUSE everyone is corrupt, not the other way around. Regulators, who are third parties to the transaction beholden to neither those seeking health care nor those offering it, are the most susceptible to corruption. Regulators need eliminated to reduce corruption, amongst other things.
Never the supplier using ill gotten capital from predatory business practices to lobby or perpetrate regulatory capture.
Nope, it's always those pesky regulators sticking their hands out. Never those Captains of Industry! Paragons of Humanity and Unquestionable Beings of Moral Fiber and Impeccably Ethical Manner!
What part of that didn't you understand? Where did I say the captains of industry aren't corrupt. I said "everyone."
The consumer has the power to voluntarily spend or not spend with a particular health care provider for the vast majority of health care decisions. Their providers are beholden to the customer.
The regulator, on the other hand, is not beholden to the customer this way. The regulator, are typically integrated as part of government and thus not only are they unbeholden to the customer but they also are part of the same entity as men with guns who can use violence to achieve their ends. They are nearly always unelected and only in the loosest sense does the customer have any control -- no one seriously votes for their senators / representative based on who they approve of in say the FDA (can 99% of voters even name a single regulator in say the FDA?) -- that vote is dominated by other even more important issues you need your representative for. These regulators are effectively an ultimate source of corruption, backed by guns and only in the most tangential sense accountable to consumers but with wide latitude to control industry in ways that harm the consumer.
Yes everyone is corrupt, including the 'captains of industry' and even the 'consumer' but regulators make things massively worse. Regulators create an amplification effect of corruption.
