HRT and the joys of government planning

Beaming in from outside the Westminster Bubble we now have the news about the Great HRT Shortage. HRT solves a problem, it should indeed be widely available. Having government in charge of it therefore seems like a bad idea:

HRT ‘betrayal’ forces women to buy on the black market

One line of thought to follow here is that prices, in markets, are what prices in markets will be. The NHS pays an agreed amount to those who make the HRT materials and if that’s not enough then supply will be short. Prices will then become what prices actually are, not what the NHS determines they should be. This is something that those who would abolish markets and prices need to understand about the reality outside that Bubble - markets and prices will out whatever you do or say about them.

The other useful line of thought concerns this:

Why are there HRT shortages?

Demand has surged in recent years amid high-profile menopause awareness campaigns, which have reassured women over HRT side-effects and highlighted the benefits of the therapy. The number of monthly prescriptions in England has increased from 238,000 in 2017 to almost 538,000 in December 2021.

However, there are insufficient stocks to meet this demand.

Government deliberately and specifically - and probably righteously - drove up demand. At the same time government failed to add to supply. Therefore prices rose as a result of the dearth of supply to meet that rising demand. Markets - and prices - will out as we say.

The takeaway here is that we should not be using government to plan things. It’s possible to make all sorts of theoretical arguments both for and against the idea. But as with any scientific hypothesis it is the evidence of reality that wins. Government simply isn’t competent to plan things therefore we should not use it to plan things.

Among the wider ASI family there are a number of young children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews and so on. All of whom do grasp that if Mummy’s to take more drugs then there need to be more drugs to take. As government is incapable of realising what is apparent to babes and sucklings we really do need to reduce the number of times we try to use government to do things.