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So would you say that other countries in which insulin is cheaper have a healthcare industry that is a freer market than the US?
Other countries are not controlled by FDA regulations.
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Less so after you correct for all of the things which we have to pay for out of pocket: health insurance, copays, drugs, etc. but also things like education, childcare, retirement, transportation, and often housing. I’ve known a number of people from Europe or Asia and all of them commented on how they thought they’d be making more here based on the raw income numbers, and how much more stressful it was here because…
So I buy health insurance and save money however I choose for later expenses. I don't see how it's easier or less stressful to bring the government into that loop, unless I don't care at all.
Finding providers will require you to spend a lot of time finding doctors, dentists, specialists, etc. who you like, accept your insurance, and are accepting patients. Often the intersection of those things requires substantial travel to areas without transit so how that whatever medical needs you develop don’t preclude driving.
If you did have any real medical needs - even common life events like an uncomplicated natural pregnancy – you’ll need to have tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars saved to avoid needing to negotiate a payment plan. That’s even more pricey if you need medication or care for an ongoing basis.
Because the doctors are for-profit, you’re going to be steered towards unnecessary services and you’ll need to review every bill to make sure only things you approved are listed - hospitals are notorious for having some random out-of-network specialist pop in for 30 seconds to add $15k to your bill.
Because your insurance company is for-profit, be prepared to need to escalate or threaten to sue to have necessary treatment authorized. Your doctor’s medical expertise is secondary to Fred in claims processing, hope whatever you have doesn’t get worse in the meantime!
Also because your doctor and insurance company are for-profit, expect either of them to stop doing business with the other any time it’s more profitable. There’s no guarantee that anyone in-network will be available in your area and you’ll likely need to haggle to get permission to go out of network.
None of that is great to deal with while your family is caring for someone with whatever issues need testing and it’s made even more fun by the knowledge that almost nobody in what you’d consider a peer country has to deal with anything like that much hassle.
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Might be tricky if you don’t speak Japanese though. Do they have multilingual optometrists that cater to tourists? I suppose Tokyo is big enough you can probably find one of anything.
I'm not sure how much it would cost to hire a translator for an hour or two, but you'd probably still come out ahead.
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In insulin sales the biggest barriers are regulatory. I thought you were talking about the free market, not the regulated market.
That leads to the same question I asked in the other comment chain. If you think the costs of the US healthcare are caused by the market being too regulated, doesn't that imply that you think cheaper markets are freer markets? Would you say that almost all of our peer nations take a more free market approach to healthcare than the US?
Yes
>doesn't that imply that you think cheaper markets are freer markets?
No. Example: You could imprison slaves and pick cotton, that doesn't mean the cheaper cotton is result of a free market, because it is predicated on force rather than voluntary exchange.
>Would you say that almost all of our peer nations take a more free market approach to healthcare than the US?
An interesting question. Possibly yes, possibly no, but forcing the tax for it under the gun of the tax man is a big strike against it being a free market, in any nation that taxes universally for it. I would have to contrast that against the gun of the regulator in the US effectively forcing the provider and consumer to follow their onerous constraints. One could make the argument that an otherwise unregulated but universal healthcare system might be considered a freer market, but I don't know enough about these other nations to say which ones that may be.
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So I buy health insurance and save money however I choose for later expenses. I don't see how it's easier or less stressful to bring the government into that loop, unless I don't care at all.
It’s all the stuff you left out: for example, you’re spending on average 2-3 times more so you’re probably not actually saving more. Finding providers will require you to spend a lot of time finding doctors, dentists, specialists, etc. who you like, accept your insurance, and are accepting patients. Often the intersection of those things requires substantial travel to areas without transit so how that whatever medica…
What I spend on health insurance is far less than the difference in pay I'd get working in a peer country as a SWE, even if ignoring the difference in taxes. I'm not saving up tens of thousands of dollars for common life events; it's covered.
And the opportunities are better here. My family members and friends from Iran and Lebanon tell each other, France or Germany is better if you want to sit on an entry-level job (which some do), US is better if you're ambitious. There's a real brain drain.
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That leads to the same question I asked in the other comment chain. If you think the costs of the US healthcare are caused by the market being too regulated, doesn't that imply that you think cheaper markets are freer markets? Would you say that almost all of our peer nations take a more free market approach to healthcare than the US?
> If you think the costs of the US healthcare are caused by the market being too regulated Yes >doesn't that imply that you think cheaper markets are freer markets? No. Example: You could imprison slaves and pick cotton, that doesn't mean the cheaper cotton is result of a free market, because it is predicated on force rather than voluntary exchange. >Would you say that almost all of our peer nations take a more free…
Isn't regulation against slavery inherently a restriction of a free market? There is obviously violent coercion baked into it, but from an economic perspective, it is basically an elimination of minimum wage which is an artificial limitation on the market.
> Possibly yes, possibly no, but forcing the tax for it under the gun of the tax man is a big strike against it being a free market, in any nation that taxes universally for it. I would have to contrast that against the gun of the regulator in the US effectively forcing the provider and consumer to follow their onerous constraints. One could make the argument that an otherwise unregulated but universal healthcare system might be considered a freer market, but I don't know enough about these other nations to say which ones that may be.
But whether the funding comes from public or private sources is not what most defines a free market. That comes from competition between buyers and sellers. I view US healthcare as more free market because buyers aren't nearly as limited. Many other countries restrict the market by centralizing purchasing through the government. This distortion of the free market gives the buyers more power which can result in lower negotiated prices. It isn't that healthcare markets in other countries are less regulated that makes them cheaper. It is that they are regulated in specific ways to make sure they are cheaper.
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> If you think the costs of the US healthcare are caused by the market being too regulated Yes >doesn't that imply that you think cheaper markets are freer markets? No. Example: You could imprison slaves and pick cotton, that doesn't mean the cheaper cotton is result of a free market, because it is predicated on force rather than voluntary exchange. >Would you say that almost all of our peer nations take a more free…
> You could imprison slaves and pick cotton, that doesn't mean the cheaper cotton is result of a free market, because it is predicated on force rather than voluntary exchange. Isn't regulation against slavery inherently a restriction of a free market? There is obviously violent coercion baked into it, but from an economic perspective, it is basically an elimination of minimum wage which is an artificial limitation on…
What? Slavery = free market? Are you serious? Free market has voluntary exchange. I'd like you to apologize for deliberately debating in bad faith, otherwise we can just stop here.
>it [slavery] is basically an elimination of minimum wage which is an artificial limitation on the market.
Someone as intelligent as you doesn't need to be explained this, but I will feed the troll for a moment and make it obvious:
Free market:
A: OK bob, we're setting your wage to zero. Make sure to hit production today.
B: Nah fuck off, EvilCo down the street will pay me 20 Wulans an hour, but my daughter might volunteer for free to work with the CapitalistFuckwad Engineering division on a charity project to help with her college application.
A: OK bob, we're setting your wage to zero. Make sure to hit production today. We'll be changing the code to the cage for your children today, so if you don't hit production we'll be auctioning them off without telling you the code.
B: Yes sire, can I tickle your balls as well in exchange for you allowing to see my wife for 5 minutes in the conjugal visit cage?
A: Great, our labor prices and price to consumers are so much lower now than back when we were called CapitalistFuckwad enterprises and the dopes working for us could actually walk away when we tried paying them zero. Bob's daughter's charity work was great so I can't wait to use the cattle prod to entice her to work on the real meat and potatoes.Earlier quoted context omitted.
Other countries are not controlled by FDA regulations.
Sure, but they have their own FDA equivalent with their own regulations. Why are the regulations in the US more harmful than the regulations elsewhere?
https://www.t1international.com/blog/2019/01/20/why-insulin-...
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/12/10/insulin-drug-pric...
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4193636/ > Of the members of the general population who reported they had “pains in the heart,” 25 percent did not see a physician (Andersen and Anderson, 1967). Sounds awesome. The article makes a pretty good case for your 1968 date being an attribution error - that years before it, the rise of things like transplants, ICUs, demographic changes, etc. were already messing…
I've seen charts of medical costs over time, there's a knee in the curve in 1968.
Looks pretty steady to me: https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/forefront.20110919....
1960 onwards: https://aneconomicsense.org/2019/11/23/the-high-and-rising-c...
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I'd be curious to see what portion of US health care goes to salaries of licensed health care workers, and how the relates to labor costs of various middle men and administrators, as well as regulatory compliance people.
When you go to the doctor ask them if they think they are making more or less than your deductible for the visit.