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How to Charge $546 for Six Liters of Saltwater

nytimes.com

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Re: How to Charge $546 for Six Liters of Saltwater

#121

Post by andylei »

jes wrote: post #57
nikatwork wrote: post #36

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.

hammers are really good at pounding nails into walls. hammers are not good for turning screws.

free markets are really good at efficiently allocating resources in certain types of markets, and not so good in other types of markets

Re: How to Charge $546 for Six Liters of Saltwater

#122

Post by moocowduckquack »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #76
DanBC wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cell phones are a great example of the terrible results from supposedly free markets. Plans are deliberately priced to be confusing to compare prices; plans are frequently updated to cause people to be stuck in win-optimal contracts; consumers are gouged on some items (see bizarre cost of sms in UK); and companies collude to defeat market mechanisms - see the use of area codes in auction bids as a method of communica…

Would this be the same free market that put a Cray 2-class computer in my pocket for $85/month?

When you look at how much other devices cost that are comparable but are not mobile phones, then over a grand a year does seem excessive. Comparing the cost of a phone to a cray-2 is fairly meaningless. It would make more sense to compare it to a Raspberry-Pi.

Re: How to Charge $546 for Six Liters of Saltwater

#123

Post by jes »

ThomPete wrote: post #80
jes wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a cell phone? If the results of this particular market are so terrible, why does virtually everyone elect, of their own free will, to buy a cell phone?

Because they have no other choice. We choose between what we have, not what is the best or the right thing to choose.

If a person chooses it freely, how can you say it's not the right thing for them to choose? Epistemologically, how could you know this?

Re: How to Charge $546 for Six Liters of Saltwater

#124

Post by MrMan »

DanBC wrote: post #78
jes wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a cell phone? If the results of this particular market are so terrible, why does virtually everyone elect, of their own free will, to buy a cell phone?

Many people buy cell phones. That doesn't mean the market works. Consumers are gouged every day by unfair practices from cell phone providers. I'm a bit confused how anyone using a cellphone could chino otherwise.

Genuinely want to kniw what sequence of letters was intended in stead of "cbino.

Re: How to Charge $546 for Six Liters of Saltwater

#125

Post by krichman »

zdean wrote: post #117
Steuard wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sentence you're objecting to isn't claiming that US healthcare is a completely free market (which, as you note, would be an unbelievably ignorant view to hold... literally unbelievably). It's claiming that certain failures of the fairly-free US system already illustrate the sorts of failures that would plague a free(er) system. You may or may not agree with that conclusion, but it's a far more plausible view for…

"US healthcare system is in fact a perfect demonstration of the dangers of a completely free market" The commenter actually says exactly that...that the US healthcare system is (in fact) a perfect demonstration of a completely free market.

The part you quoted doesn't support your argument, re-read it and then disagree with what was actually claimed if you'd like.

Re: How to Charge $546 for Six Liters of Saltwater

#127

Post by krichman »

jes wrote: post #94
gnoway wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Look at Apple's App Store. It restricts what developers can do (and charge) and it restricts what users can download (and where from). But, because the short-term benefits are good enough, many people do use it, to the detriment of the group.

Re: How to Charge $546 for Six Liters of Saltwater

#128

Post by ck2 »

Basically it comes down to we'd rather let people die instead of telling hospitals they cannot do 10000% markup.

Even limiting them to 1000% markup would be "wrong".

Yay 'murica.

Be sure to donate blood while you are waiting for your loved ones in the hospital so they can sell it for 10000% markup too.

Re: How to Charge $546 for Six Liters of Saltwater

#129

Post by krichman »

aamar wrote: post #114
nikatwork wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free markets are a problem when there is a resource that can be monopolized (doctors / medical supplies) or when corporate goals are at direct odds to community interest (a deregulated BP despoiling the Gulf of Mexico because safety measures are expensive and fuck you.) Home Depot would happily gouge you if they could form a cartel and gain enough control of the supply chain.

I'm in much agreement with your initial point (that free markets allow for price-fixing), but you're getting a lot of comments here because you overstate your case! There's nothing peculiar about medical supplies that make them easy monopolized. Pharmaceuticals and medical devices (neither of which are the topic of the original post) enjoy patent protection, but there are often many out-of-patent substitutes availabl…

But we want the state to regulate medical practitioners! Even if we support natural selection acting on humans, we don't want an ambulance to take us to a homeopathic healer or Christian scientist, we want them to take us to a licensed professional.

Re: How to Charge $546 for Six Liters of Saltwater

#130

Post by moocowduckquack »

pash wrote: post #86
nikatwork wrote: post #36

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…

Many people think "free markets" when they should think "competitive markets".

Two of the major things that are said to be features of free markets are deregulation and price transparency. The trouble is that deregulation and price transparency are often opposing forces.
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