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Health care is turning into a consumer product

economist.com

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Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#191

Post by tablespoon »

nopenopenopeno wrote: post #169
omosubi wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: prisons - This isn't necessarily the case. Florida's private prisons have air conditioning and the public ones don't in part because of democratic control and the private ones have fewer deaths from heat stroke as a result.

Quoted post unavailable.

>>> Institutions like healthcare, education, public transport, prisons(!) and so on are more efficient, less corrupt and of higher quality when they are in large parts collectively and democratically organized and funded.

>> Re: prisons - This isn't necessarily the case. Florida's private prisons have air conditioning and the public ones don't in part because of democratic control and the private ones have fewer deaths from heat stroke as a result.

> Extremely suspicious comment. Please elaborate on “democratic control.”

Yeah. Also the GP weirdly collapses "more efficient, less corrupt and of higher quality" into "has air conditioning: Y/N." You have to evaluate those things holistically, and it's quite possible that he holistically-better solution is actually worse in some specific areas.

Also I don't have any specific knowledge about Florida prisons, but private prisons are a new(ish) phenomena [1], and "hav[ing] air conditioning" might simply be an unintended consequence of that, because building standards have changed.

[1] You know what I mean, don't nitpick with some ancient example.

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#192

Post by nradov »

cntainer wrote: post #160
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One point that gets skipped over a lot - the US is also one of the most unhealthy countries in the advanced world. This is a big /part/ of the "worst outcomes" in the "highest cost, worst outcomes". It is possible that you can spend a ton of money on healthcare - yet smoke and drink, drive everywhere and not exercise at all, and eat trash - that the healthcare spending is doomed to fail. Europeans walk & bike more an…

That's a good point, life style does play a major part. But I think this point also opens another subject, preventive healthcare. Many modern healthcare systems are starting to focus on prevention for 2 main reasons: increase quality of life and reduce long-term healthcare costs. For example, in Finland public tobacco smoking is(was?) considered a public health issue. The government got actively involved to reduce co…

The "metabo law" in Japan appears to have been somewhat successful in preventing obesity. But it probably wouldn't be politically acceptable in the USA.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/09/big-gover...

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#193

Post by telxosser »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #121
cntainer wrote: post #44

It's interesting to see that "Health care consumes 18% of GDP in America" compared to ~10% in most developed countries. In my (non-american) opinion part of that difference comes from the fact that healthcare is already a consumer product in the US. Maybe not entirely, but much more than in Europe, where universal healthcare sponsored by the state is the norm. Another point is that US healthcare is considered the mos…

One point that gets skipped over a lot - the US is also one of the most unhealthy countries in the advanced world. This is a big /part/ of the "worst outcomes" in the "highest cost, worst outcomes". It is possible that you can spend a ton of money on healthcare - yet smoke and drink, drive everywhere and not exercise at all, and eat trash - that the healthcare spending is doomed to fail. Europeans walk & bike more an…

Spot on.

My father is getting old and our healthcare system has done a great job at keeping him alive while he can still eat shit loads of pizza, drink beer and be a 80lbs overweight.

All this medication and treatment he takes is not just to keep him alive but to keep him alive without having to change a single bad habit.

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#194

Post by frockington1 »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #65
unixhero wrote: post #24

Healthcare in the Nordics is free. Just saying.

> Healthcare in the Nordics is free. Just saying. It isn't free, it's paid by people's taxes AKA redistribution of wealth, a % of the salary and mandatory health insurances. Private hospitals also do exist. Nothing is for free.

In Norway a lot of it is paid for by oil. Once the world transitions to clean energy Norwegians will be in for a wake up call. In their defense they are trying to diversify but it's not an easy task

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#195

Post by nradov »

fartcannon wrote: post #136
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One point that gets skipped over a lot - the US is also one of the most unhealthy countries in the advanced world. This is a big /part/ of the "worst outcomes" in the "highest cost, worst outcomes". It is possible that you can spend a ton of money on healthcare - yet smoke and drink, drive everywhere and not exercise at all, and eat trash - that the healthcare spending is doomed to fail. Europeans walk & bike more an…

Just look north. Canadians are basically the same people, eat the same diet, but they have free health care, and live 3-4 years longer on average. Maybe you want to control for the cold weather too?

Canadians don't eat the same diet. The obesity rate is 36% in the USA but only 29% in Canada. I suspect that the difference in life expectancy is influenced more by obesity than by the healthcare system.

And yes we absolutely should control for climate, or at least for incidence of extreme heat waves. It's well known that heat waves kill a lot of frail elderly people.

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#196

Post by telxosser »

merpnderp wrote: post #104
cntainer wrote: post #44

It's interesting to see that "Health care consumes 18% of GDP in America" compared to ~10% in most developed countries. In my (non-american) opinion part of that difference comes from the fact that healthcare is already a consumer product in the US. Maybe not entirely, but much more than in Europe, where universal healthcare sponsored by the state is the norm. Another point is that US healthcare is considered the mos…

I’m interested in this worst performing stat. By what measure? Because I’ve always read that when controlling for the relative poor health of the us population regarding diseases related to poor eating and exercise habits, the US was a top performer for heart and cancer treatments.

I am pushing 50 years of age and one constant in my life is people shitting on the US healthcare system.

I have family in Canada with family members the same age on both sides.

Canada is great if you are a healthy broke college student.

No one in their right mind would ever pick Canadian health care over the US though if you are 60+.

There is no way you would rather have cancer in a country with free health care.

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#197

Post by tablespoon »

donatj wrote: post #177
howdydoo wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that healthcare-as-a-market would start working if externalities were priced in? How would that help?

I suspect the argument is "Healthcare has never been allowed to be a market" Given how many legal restrictions are placed on it, I tend to agree.

> I suspect the argument is "Healthcare has never been allowed to be a market" Given how many legal restrictions are placed on it, I tend to agree.

Emergency services aren't a good fit for markets. For markets to work, people really need the luxury to shop around with some leisure.

Wasn't there some Roman oligarch that ran a private fire department, and basically just used it to extort property owners when they had a fire? Truly market based emergency medical care without legal restrictions would likely frequently resemble that with some frequency.

Edit: Yep: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_firefighting#Rome

> The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Marcus Licinius Crassus. He took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the firefighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed property owner, at a miserable price. If the owner agreed to sell the property, his men would put out the fire, if the owner refused, then they would simply let the structure burn to the ground.

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#199

Post by mbg721 »

merpnderp wrote: post #104
cntainer wrote: post #44

It's interesting to see that "Health care consumes 18% of GDP in America" compared to ~10% in most developed countries. In my (non-american) opinion part of that difference comes from the fact that healthcare is already a consumer product in the US. Maybe not entirely, but much more than in Europe, where universal healthcare sponsored by the state is the norm. Another point is that US healthcare is considered the mos…

I’m interested in this worst performing stat. By what measure? Because I’ve always read that when controlling for the relative poor health of the us population regarding diseases related to poor eating and exercise habits, the US was a top performer for heart and cancer treatments.

At the very least, by billing transparency and paperwork load. Even Americans who are happy with their healthcare hate that.

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#200

Post by netizen-936824 »

vorpalhex wrote: post #176
netizen-936824 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we should just expect people to be greedy and try to ruin systems for their own benefit. That raises the question of how to make these systems more robust to defend against that sort of attack.

That is the pro of a market system. A market with a malbehaving dominant party is liable to be upset by a new contender who will undercut them, thus depriving the misbehaving party of income.

That's assuming that the methods used to undercut are beneficial when in reality they're just optimizing for profits over health outcomes. People don't have enough of a choice for it to matter, most people can't just find new providers. Same with ISPs
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