INTRODUCTION

When medical care is regarded as social common capital, every member of the society is entitled, as basic human rights, to receive the best available medical care that the society can provide, regardless of the economic, social, and regional circumstances, even though this does not necessarily imply that medical care is provided free of charge. The government is required to compose the overall plan that would result in the management of the medical care component of social common capital that is socially optimum. This plan consists of the regional distribution of various types of medical institutions and the schooling system to train physicians, nurses, technical experts, and other co-medical staff to meet the demand for medical care. The government is then required to devise institutional and financial arrangements under which the construction and maintenance of the necessary medical institutions are realized and the required number of medical professionals are trained without social or bureaucratic coercion. It should be emphasized that all medical institutions and schools basically are private and the management is supervised by qualified medical professionals.

The fees for medical care then are determined based on the principle of marginal social cost pricing, not through mere market mechanisms. It may be noted that the smaller the capacity of the medical component of social common capital, the higher the fees charged to various types of medical care services.