Most people are worried about the costs of healthcare and consider it the cause for high prices and wish to regulate these costs. Even libertarians seem (correct me if I'm wrong of course) to implicitly hold the view that high costs are driving up prices (William L Anderson "Bad Medicine" or Bad Economics) -though their policy prescriptions of less government in healthcare are more correct. Nevertheless if it is true that costs are based on price but price is not based on cost, as rothbard said, then the true critique of universal healthcare isn't that it leads to shortages or that it causes the problems it looks to treat but rather that the high costs of the system aren't even causally related to the high prices so that any regulation to lower costs are scientifically wrong. Yet some of us continue to argue on the former points instead of the more fundamental latter point. So my question is this why aren't we arguing against the cost --> price theory? And if we aren't then am I just wrong and in this particular issue somehow costs are driving up prices?
Note: Not being a jerk here I just needed Mr. Anderson as an instantiation of what I meant.
Be careful with the hasty generalizations. Anywho, there are many factor/government interventions that drive up the price of "health care". One is that the government subsidizes "health care"; what this does is make the "patients" willing and able to pay higher prices for "health care", thus the price goes up. Also, the price of "health care" is indirectly influenced by costs.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."