October 13, 2016
That’s right, Friedman is actually supporting measures that would help to reverse the upward redistribution of the last four decades. In his column today Friedman identifies himself as a citizen “who believes that America needs a healthy center-right party that offers more market-based solutions to problems; keeps the pressure on for deregulation, freer trade and smaller government.”
Of course, reducing the length and strength of patent and copyright monopolies would be a big step towards freer trade. If we paid free market prices for prescription drugs instead of today’s protected prices, we would save in the neighborhood of $360 billion a year (@ 2.0 percent of GDP).
Currently, doctors have to complete a residency program in the United States to practice medicine here. If we replaced this requirement with one designed to ensure that doctors practicing in the United States were competent, it could save us around $100 billion annually in medical expenses.
As can be seen, there are enormous potential gains to the public from freer trade. It’s good to see Friedman’s interest in turning policy in that direction. It would be nice if people in positions of political power shared his point of view.
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