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The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence

aaronstannard.com

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Re: The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence

#111

Post by toast0 »

Aaronontheweb wrote: post #83
toast0 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claiming $200/month for a phone makes one wonder which numbers are valid. I'm not saying everyone needs to make a $100 phone last 5 years and use a $15/month plan, but I'm not even sure how I would get to $200/month in phone bill, even including financing an iPhone 17 Pro Max.

I pay that at least much for my family, hence why I used it

When you say

> I pay that at least much for my family, hence why I used it

and your article says

> Having a $200/mo smartphone is now a participation cost for many things such as getting access to your banking information remotely, medical records, and work / school.

It sounds like you're trying to communicate that you pay at least $200/month per smartphone for your family? Or you don't value precision in communication.

I know you've got a lot going on with a small business, and a new kid... but if money is important to you, maybe spend the time to switch to prepaid phone plans. There's lots of options [1], whatever network you need, you can do direct operator plans, MVNO owned by the operator, or like actual MVNO. If you're short on time and T-Mobile's network works for you, MintMobile has a promo going right now where $180 pays for 12 months of "unlimited" which is $15/month if you divide it out.

> I also pay $1250 per month to TriNet for the privilege of being able to buy their health insurance in the first place - sure, I get some other benefits too, but I’m the only US-based employee currently so this overhead is really 100% me.

Do you live in a state with a reasonable healthcare exchange? You might want to shop and see if an off the shelf plan from the exchange is better than paying TriNet to get access to their insurance; it may well be, but you should check. If you only have one US employee, and it's you, there's a lot of expense for not a lot of value IMHO. It's not really Apples to Apples though --- I think a lot of the TriNet plans have out of state coverage where a lot of exchange plans don't.

[1] https://prepaidcompare.net/

Re: The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence

#112

Post by peter422 »

BeetleB wrote: post #100
peter422 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

15 out of the top 50 and 4/6 top hospitals in the world are in the US: https://rankings.newsweek.com/worlds-best-hospitals-2025 Again, I’m not saying the health care outcomes are better, or the value is better. I’m saying the hospitals are nicer, the doctors are the best, etc. Perhaps this is the wrong thing to optimize for! But we are getting something.

> 15 out of the top 50 and 4/6 top hospitals in the world are in the US Outliers do not say much about the overall quality of healthcare in a country. Rather obvious lesson in statistics. Reminds me of the Russian mathematician who moved to the US after the fall of the Soviet Union. Most of his essays were criticizing American students, but in one essay he was quite frank: Russians who graduate with math degrees are…

Perhaps my language was too imprecise.

My argument is that specifically the best care in the US is the best in the world. We have the best doctors and the best technology and the best treatments. This is not completely universal but it is also generally accurate.

Whether or not this care is accessible or the median quality is care is good, that is different.

I’m just saying we do get something for the money, it’s not like it all gets thrown down the drain. The best and brightest come to the US to get some of the huge spigots of money in the US healthcare system and it does drive innovation.

Re: The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence

#113

Post by autoexec »

godsinhisheaven wrote: post #76

A lot of this is an issue of insurance no longer being "insurance" in the classical sense. Insurance covers all sorts of things, my HSA pays for all sorts of things that I never would have even considered, and while that sounds great, it helps to drive up costs. It's somewhat counter-intuitive, but if you dropped all government funding of healthcare tomorrow, healthcare plans would get cheaper. It'd also be total cha…

> but if you dropped all government funding of healthcare tomorrow, healthcare plans would get cheaper.

I doubt it. Hospitals charge $15 for a single pill of Tylenol because they know insurance will pay for it, and that includes private insurance.

The best thing we could do is ditch the private healthcare industry to the extent that the rest of the first world has and cover everyone with government plans. Those plans can then negotiate for much better prices and refuse the kinds of insane charges we're seeing. The cost of plans would also drop because prices would be spread out over every taxpayer. Having primarily a single provider for insurance would make everything easier and less expensive for hospitals and doctors offices too.

The billions in profits private healthcare companies rake in all comes at the expense of everyone else one way or another and they have every incentive to make as much money in profit as they can. Without that excess fortune in profits being skimmed off and stuffed into pockets a government funded insurance plan which covered everyone could get the job done taking in closer to what it actually costs to deliver the services we want and no more.

Re: The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence

#114

Post by BeetleB »

Aaronontheweb wrote: post #83
toast0 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claiming $200/month for a phone makes one wonder which numbers are valid. I'm not saying everyone needs to make a $100 phone last 5 years and use a $15/month plan, but I'm not even sure how I would get to $200/month in phone bill, even including financing an iPhone 17 Pro Max.

I pay that at least much for my family, hence why I used it

Consider changing your plan?

I pay $70/mo for 2 phone lines. Unlimited everything (well, OK, 5 GB data cap before slowing down).

Re: The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence

#115

Post by Aaronontheweb »

toast0 wrote: post #111
Aaronontheweb wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pay that at least much for my family, hence why I used it

When you say > I pay that at least much for my family, hence why I used it and your article says > Having a $200/mo smartphone is now a participation cost for many things such as getting access to your banking information remotely, medical records, and work / school. It sounds like you're trying to communicate that you pay at least $200/month per smartphone for your family? Or you don't value precision in communicati…

> It sounds like you're trying to communicate that you pay at least $200/month per smartphone for your family? Or you don't value precision in communication.

You're moving the goal posts here. You have to have service, realistically, in order to use it like a real person.

Re: The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence

#116

Post by venturecruelty »

mattcantstop wrote: post #102
shermozle wrote: post #56

The first sentence is your answer. The third word even. The healthcare market. MARKET Healthcare shouldn't be a market. That's why you're paying $40k.

I have the opposite viewpoint, and I lean heavily progressive in most of my views. Healthcare in the United States isn't a market, and that is why it is so terrible. For instance, there is no reasonable ability to compare prices of services. Prices are entirely hidden. Then there is the "with insurance" price vs cash prices. Healthcare doesn't function as a market, to our detriment.

Sorry, I'm not going to Google "cheap MRIs near me" when I'm bleeding out on the floor having an emergency. Healthcare is not expensive because you can't see how much a doctor visit costs, it's expensive because that's how a lot of people make a lot of money, and they get very upset when that is threatened.

Re: The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence

#117

Post by AstroBen »

Aaronontheweb wrote: post #83
toast0 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claiming $200/month for a phone makes one wonder which numbers are valid. I'm not saying everyone needs to make a $100 phone last 5 years and use a $15/month plan, but I'm not even sure how I would get to $200/month in phone bill, even including financing an iPhone 17 Pro Max.

I pay that at least much for my family, hence why I used it

Mint or US Mobile are ~$15-20 a month. You're massively overpaying

Re: The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence

#118

Post by venturecruelty »

AstroBen wrote: post #55
peter422 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quality of health care in the US is significantly higher than anywhere else in the world. Whether that quality is necessarily (or good) is debatable, but we are getting something for the money. You also are just completely wrong in your main point. We cannot provide the same efficacy of healthcare as we are now for 60% less. We are the richest country in the world, labor costs more here than other places.

> The quality of health care in the US is significantly higher than anywhere else in the world. Do you have any evidence of that?

"My healthcare outcomes are great, which means American healthcare is good."

Re: The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence

#119

Post by [deleted] »

sofixa wrote: post #103
shermozle wrote: post #56

The first sentence is your answer. The third word even. The healthcare market. MARKET Healthcare shouldn't be a market. That's why you're paying $40k.

In economics 101 one of the first things they teach you is supply and demand, and inelastic goods. Food and healthcare are the two main examples of inelastic goods, where demand is heavily disconnected from supply. There are of course nuances (you can eat just beans and rice, or do the bare minimum of healthcare/medicine to survive), but both are not things you have a lot of choice to consume or not.

[deleted]

Re: The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence

#120

Post by hypeatei »

estimator7292 wrote: post #72
bmandale wrote: post #25

So to summarize: a. you're paying that for health insurance, not for the birth of the child. If you, your wife, your children had any other diseases then those would be covered as well. This is a significant benefit. b. all the systems that subsidize health care for those less well off don't apply because you're wealthy. So you are bearing the full cost of extremely high quality health insurance in a western country.

How come other countries have better healthcare at lower real costs? Basically every developed nation has better healthcare outcomes than the US. All other nations have cheaper healthcare. America is not special, we've just brainwashed our less-observant citizens into believing that solutions the entire rest of the world uses will never and can never work here. There's nothing special about our population or economy…

When I went to Canada, I talked to someone who said the Canadian government will subsidize trips to the US for certain treatments because it's not available at all in Canada or has insane waiting times. It's one data point, I know, but generally I think it's true that quality and availability of care in the US is much better.
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