H1N1 economics

I have a kid on the priority list for getting the H1N1 vaccine (a child with an underlying respiratory illness). I want him to get the vaccine. But we seem to be having some problems finding the vaccine. The federal government is in charge of buying and distributing H1N1 vaccine to states. Arizona seems to then let the counties distribute the vaccine to an assortment of schools, doctors, flu shot clinics, and community health centers.

So how is this going? Terribly.

As of this morning, the county public health department has a notice on its website saying there are no public locations for getting the vaccine. Of course that’s after you can even find their website, the county website’s lead item touts its “Blue Sky Award Winners” – as if that’s what its clients/citizens are most interest in – and the only item on the homepage that is about the flu goes to a press release from the county’s top public health doc expalining why it’s not the county’s fault that there isn’t enough vaccine. How long would a private entity last if it’s website burried all mentions of its biggest seller?

There are maps on private sites that tell you where there are flu shot clinics but they don’t tell you if there is H1N1 vaccine available at those locations. Our pediatrician’s office doesn’t have shots yet, and doesn’t know when they will. I asked the head of one of the largest community health centers in the state where to go and he said if my son were one of his patients he could have had a shot there, but since he isn’t he doesn’t know where to send him.

The people and institutions that are supposed to be the places to turn either can’t really help, or haven’t bothered to create a system that would help.

This isn’t really a surprise though. The federal and state governments have a monopoly over the supply of the vaccine, and the feds essentially get to control the price of the vaccine since it is the sole purchaser. The people in local government agencies don’t have much of an incentive to build a system that is responsive to their constituents. Decades of economics research shows that these circumstances are pretty much designed to create scarcity, especially when anything happens to increase demand above prior levels.

It’s crazy to build a flu vaccine system that is particularly non-repsonsive when demand is high because that is precisely the time when it’s most important the system works. Will we learn this lesson this year? I’m not optimistic.