101–110 of 191 posts
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_%28United_States%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipaa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordab... This is kind of like condescendingly asking someone to provide a counterargument to a proposition that the Earth is completely dry land.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_need
Many in this thread are claiming that price fixing wouldn't occur in a "truly free" market. This is misty-eyed naivety. In a completely deregulated free market, it is even more in the hospitals' interest to form a price-fixing cartel. Any new player in the market trying to set reasonable market prices could be excluded through market pressure tactics (eg, tell distributors don't sell to them or our cartel will no lon…
How do you explain other free markets that obviously deliver quality products at low prices? I don't feel gouged when I buy a television, a cell phone or lumber at Home Depot.
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Emergency care has to be just a piece of the cost pie. People shop around for health care all the time, including for very expensive things like childbirth.
There was just a big NY Times article on the cost of childbirth. Turns out its extremely hard to shop around. Not only is it much more expensive in the US than in any other country to give birth, but, with a few exceptions, it's very difficult to get pricing information in advance. To quote: >When she became pregnant, Ms. Martin called her local hospital inquiring about the price of maternity care; the finance office…
Even in the suburban areas I've lived in, for us that meant a "selection" of between 3-4 potential clinics, not exactly a very wide choice (and completely based on where I lived so it could very well have been that I would have been selecting from 4 of the worst clinics in the whole state).
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Emergency care has to be just a piece of the cost pie. People shop around for health care all the time, including for very expensive things like childbirth.
There was just a big NY Times article on the cost of childbirth. Turns out its extremely hard to shop around. Not only is it much more expensive in the US than in any other country to give birth, but, with a few exceptions, it's very difficult to get pricing information in advance. To quote: >When she became pregnant, Ms. Martin called her local hospital inquiring about the price of maternity care; the finance office…
When my wife was pregnant, at some point we got billed several thousand dollars for a procedure the insurance company refused to cover. She called the insurance co., and they (I think) recoded the procedure to something that cost a couple of hundred dollars and was covered to boot.
It seemed like there was a bunch of new employees on both sides who were learning as they went (and pressing random buttons). So forget in advance, pricing was hard to find out even post facto ;)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_%28United_States%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipaa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordab... This is kind of like condescendingly asking someone to provide a counterargument to a proposition that the Earth is completely dry land.
Those are insurers. The article is about the hospital supply market. In particular, the completely unregulated part of the hospital supply chain. So.. are you merely misinformed, or willfully ignorant?
That's fine. The sentence I'm objecting to is about the US healthcare system.
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> the US healthcare system ... a completely free market I have read a lot of wrong things on HN, ranging from the merely misinformed to the willfully ignorant, but this might take the cake.
You are selectively re-arranging my words to create a different meaning. At no point did I say the US healthcare system was completely free.
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"I never said Instagram hosts their own services!"
The price for one oxygen condenser is covered after a victim(patient) pays for the device for around half a year.
Looking over some others I know, they are all going through this same company. Referred to them by each of their hospitals.
I cannot fully explain the scheme worked out from the hospitals, but I know it depends on having the often confused patient signing a bundle of documentation while he is being led out the door. I read over the documents and it seemed fair, I just had no time to research all that was needed. My father was in full legal control and he himself just simply followed through with what the hospital asked.
Fuck you, Airway Oxygen.
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Well you can hardly have a free market for healthcare in the first place. A functional market requires that consumers be vigilant and make good choices. That's hard enough without being sick or injured. I like to think of myself as a free markets guy, but driving healthcare via the market seems like the worst, most cynical application of the concept possible.
With respect, what is a functional market, and why does such a market require that consumers be vigilant and make good choices? If consumers make bad choices, don't they eventually learn to make better choices?
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Whelp, the private sector sure seems to be fuckin' it up, so maybe it's time we give the government a shot.
Which private sector is that? Because our current healthcare system is nowhere near "private".
Don't simply blame "regulation" either. Many industries are regulated, some heavily so, and still manage to produce companies that are profitable and efficiently deliver good products.
I don't think we'll see a real solution to the healthcare system in America until we stop treating it like it's just like any other industry.
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Well presumably you're not suffering from an ailment that requires immediate application of TV, Angry Birds or a 2x4 in those cases.
Emergency care has to be just a piece of the cost pie. People shop around for health care all the time, including for very expensive things like childbirth.
If you buy a bad TV you can return it and provide a bad review, so next time you shop from a better store. If you buy a car and it turns out to be a piece of shit, you just lost lots of money. It will take you years to recover and save for a better, but you still can.
You can't get your life back, you can't get your health back sometimes, you can't return your dead child back. That's the problem.