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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

#251

Post by majormajor »

hamter wrote: post #245
majormajor wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not all bad to spend more - consider the extra hospital capacity that so far has helped absorb COVID shock impacts better than neighboring Canada. Hopefully we don't hit the limit of that, even, though. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-06/hospital-... US health outcomes also aren't so bad for those who have affordable access to the system , as I understand it. But the spending is something to keep…

idk canada has 806 covid deaths per 1M and usa has 2573, it's not exactly screaming 'success story' to me.

Surely you aren't suggesting that having more hospital beds per capita in the US is causing more deaths? Capacity is hardly the only factor in how Covid is hitting the population (and having more hospital capacity reducing pressure to lock things down will itself affect the rate of spread).

For instance, per https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-cases-deaths-... Canada has seen 66K cases per million and 807 deaths per 1M cumulatively. The US is at 180K and 2515. Slightly different numbers than yours, but close enough. Deaths/cases to date is very similar, 1.4% in US and 1.2% in Canada. So the difference in total deaths is largely policy and behavioral, the aggregate policy across the US has largely been one of "at this point we can't eradicate it so we need to live with it as best we can" where even the liberal US states remain quite open compared to initially in 2020 in the face of recent surges. Whether or not that's the right policy is separate from whether or not that policy would've even been realistic without as much health care capacity.

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#252

Post by Broken_Hippo »

rscho wrote: post #26
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulations and subsidies do not seem to make other countries' systems inefficient. They make it so that folks are safe and that they can actually get health care. I really want regulation in health care. I do not want medication to be a free-for-all like supplements are in the US. I'm not a doctor, after all, and they are slow to take supplements off the market even if they are harming or killing folks (take a look…

The big difference up to now has been that US hospitals have been run by a huge layer cake of administrators for a long time, while in other western countries healthcare workers have had much more direct control over how things are run. This is changing fast though, and Europe is migrating to the US model at a rapid pace, with growing administrative layer and loss of control over prices. Interestingly, european polit…

I have so many issues with this: Europe is a big place and the countries do not exactly work in unison on these things. I only have experience in Norway - and that's only for the last 8 or 9 years. The prices have always been pretty standard - the doctors office doesn't set the rates, at least not in the public system (there is a private system, but the majority of doctors are in the public system). There hasn't been huge layers of administration, at least not in the way of the US - and this is, in part, because the insurances in the US create the layers of administrators. (Doctors offices do not need nearly as much staff for paperwork duties). For the end user, they've actually removed a layer - there were two types of deductibles that were merged into one (and is less than half the cost of the two combined)

And honestly, I find it very difficult to think that this is the administrative cake you were thinking. I also find it really difficult to think that Norway, Poland, Greece, Italy, Germany, and Britain are all taking the same steps and adding complexity.

Where do you get information? Do you have links?

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#253

Post by samoa42 »

Quinner wrote: post #209
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…

Much like US Defense spending subsidizes the rest of the globe, US for-profit healthcare spending spurs massive investment in pharma and biotech research that benefits the rest of the world. Are there inefficiencies and waste? Yes. But outcomes overall are much better for it.

i mean, why waste effort on curing ppl that contribute to global overpopulation.

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#254

Post by samoa42 »

standardUser wrote: post #208
telxosser wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"There is no way you would rather have cancer in a country with free health care." Unless you can't afford for-profit healthcare. Then any sane person would 100% prefer one of the fifty or so developed nations with free healthcare.

also safe to say that a vast majority of ppl on the planet can't afford for-profit cancer treatment

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#255

Post by netizen-936824 »

nightski wrote: post #233
netizen-936824 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yet we have cities with multiple ISPs which have incredibly cheap internet at blazing speeds. In my city we have 1Gbps fiber for $70/mo and the price goes down quickly as you reduce the speed. That's better than some areas of SF I think, and we only have 2 major ISPs here. Amazing what a little competition can do. The city was smart enough when the competitor moved in to install the capacity for more ISPs to utilize…

Just because there are a couple exceptions doesn't mean you can write off the rest of the country's experience as irrelevant or incorrect

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#256

Post by buu700 »

bendbro wrote: post #250
buu700 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of this was covered by the Libertarian Party's position on healthcare reform in the last election, which I thought was interesting: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/jo-jorgensen-big-idea-marke... There are probably ways that we could combine aspects of greater and lesser privatization to achieve the best of both worlds. I have some thoughts that I've been mulling around for a while: 1. Expand the government to…

> New regulation to ban copays and set a mandatory floor on deductibles (say, $10k) I like everything here except this. Won't a significant amount of healthcare (grouped by specialization, hospital, etc) still be funded by insurance and be outside the reach of market forces? I am also curious whether there are barriers to producers of medicine, healthcare supply, etc from disrupting existing overpriced producers.

Possibly; I'm not at all an expert on the subject. My goal more directly with that was to ensure that insurance premiums would ultimately be used only to pay for emergency care rather than routine/preventive or elective care. Someone with deeper subject matter knowledge might be able to tweak or flesh it out to better achieve the intended purpose.

If I understand your last point, I really like this approach in the context of my proposal: https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2021/3/rubio-s...

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#257

Post by bushbaba »

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…

The us healthcare system is not capitalistic. If I get my flu shot I have no idea how much it cost my insurance company. CVS, Walgreens, Safeway all the same to me for a flu shot.

If instead we use health insurance like home insurance for unforseen major issues, and had price transparency. Then prices would go down as people would shop around.

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#258

Post by jimbob45 »

wreath wrote: post #145
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…

> Another point is that US healthcare is considered the most expensive and worst-performing in terms of outcomes compared to the other developed countries. In what way is it the worst-performing? I mean, what are the outcomes that are measured to determine its performance? Yes, healthcare is a lot cheaper in Europe (even if your employer wouldn't pay their part) compared to the US, but the quality of the service is r…

>the quality of the service is rather poor with very long waiting lists

I can get in to see an Urgent Care doctor in any major US city within 30 minutes of walking in the door. If it's not urgent, who cares what the wait is?

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#259

Post by SkyPuncher »

refurb wrote: post #52
rscho wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, in the US, you could pay all doctors $1 and you'd still be left with more expensive healthcare than most western countries...

Please show your math.

> First, according to multiple sources, doctors’ salaries account for only about 8% of U.S. healthcare costs. Even a 40% cut in these salaries, which the Kaiser Family Foundation concluded would result from reimbursing providers at current Medicare rates, would reduce healthcare spending by only about 3%.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-09-14/dont-blame-...

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#260

Post by mdoms »

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.

So if you imagine that USA was healthy then health outcomes look great?
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