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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

#261

Post by hamter »

majormajor wrote: post #251
hamter wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

no im suggesting that 'yolo lol we have more beds' is meaningless if u end up with worse outcomes. and let me be clear that 66k per 1M cases and 807 deaths per 1M is better than 180K per 1M And 2515 per 1M.

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#262

Post by terr-dav »

bushbaba wrote: post #257
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.

What you're describing is the lack of a normal market, and even that only applies if you have insurance. For the millions of people without insurance, they do indeed shop around. It is very much a capitalist system, since the ownership (& control) of the system is not in the hands of the workers - in insurance companies, hospitals, pharma, etc - but in the hands of wealthy shareholders.

To be fair, I suspect your definition of capitalism is very different from mine...

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#263

Post by arethuza »

mumblemumble wrote: post #189
dgb23 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The "everything is a market" ideology had a good run of almost half a century, but it should be heavily criticized in hindsight. 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. The "in large parts" is important here: A community should agree…

One thing to note about US healthcare is that it seems almost deliberately engineered to not be a market. I've never received significant health care in another country, so I can't say how the US system differs from others with any expertise. But I can say how US health care differs from just about anything else I spend money on: 1. I don't really get to shop for health insurance providers. My employer picks one, may…

"And sure, insurance covered most of it..."

Apologies for asking, but when faced with a medical situation do you have any idea when you have insurance what your maximum liability could be?

NB I'm not from the US so I very little understanding of how the system works.

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#264

Post by arethuza »

rkk3 wrote: post #158
avgDev wrote: post #155

I don't know how any American can accept the pile of trash that the US healthcare is. The only good thing is that in some cases you will get state of the art care, this is "rare" and may not result in better outcomes. 1. The cost is insane. It doesn't matter how much money you have, if you stay long term in a hospital your bill will be insane and more than an average cost of a house. 2. Single ER visit? 10 different…

> the pile of trash that the US healthcare is There are significant problems but whose Vaccine did you take for Covid-19? Pfizer (Us), Moderna (US), Johnson and Johnson (US)...

I've had two AstraZenecas (UK) and a Pfizer/BioNTech (Germany) - all materials for the latter specify it as Pfizer/BioNTech.

https://www.nhsinform.scot/covid-19-vaccine/the-vaccines/cor...

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#265

Post by vel0city »

arethuza wrote: post #263
mumblemumble wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing to note about US healthcare is that it seems almost deliberately engineered to not be a market. I've never received significant health care in another country, so I can't say how the US system differs from others with any expertise. But I can say how US health care differs from just about anything else I spend money on: 1. I don't really get to shop for health insurance providers. My employer picks one, may…

"And sure, insurance covered most of it..." Apologies for asking, but when faced with a medical situation do you have any idea when you have insurance what your maximum liability could be? NB I'm not from the US so I very little understanding of how the system works.

Many (most? I always take employer-sponsored, not an expert on all plans) health insurance plans in the US have a concept of out-of-pocket max. This is a yearly amount that is essentially your maximum yearly liability. That amount can vary from plan to plan and year to year. Usually a lower out of pocket max means higher premiums, similar to the idea of having a lower car insurance deductible usually means higher premiums.

It looks like all plans sold through the healthcare.gov marketplace is required to have out of pocket maximums.

https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-li...

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#267

Post by arethuza »

vel0city wrote: post #265
arethuza wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And sure, insurance covered most of it..." Apologies for asking, but when faced with a medical situation do you have any idea when you have insurance what your maximum liability could be? NB I'm not from the US so I very little understanding of how the system works.

Many (most? I always take employer-sponsored, not an expert on all plans) health insurance plans in the US have a concept of out-of-pocket max. This is a yearly amount that is essentially your maximum yearly liability. That amount can vary from plan to plan and year to year. Usually a lower out of pocket max means higher premiums, similar to the idea of having a lower car insurance deductible usually means higher pre…

Thanks for answering - one last question!

Is that a hard limit and you'll never have to pay more than that?

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#268

Post by terr-dav »

virgilp wrote: post #84
zimpenfish wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a full state-run system, which is vulnerable to undercapacity (which the UK is currently suffering from) That's more because we've had decades of deliberate underfunding due to the "austerity"/"capitalism++" lunatics in charge than a natural consequence of a state-run system though.

But how is that not "expected"? Feels like the argument that "communism is good, it just wasn't implemented well anywhere so far". Well, sorry, but by this point I chose to believe that a full state-run system is vulnerable to under-funding in the long term.

I would rephrase that argument as, "communism is good, it has just been ruthlessly sabotaged by capitalist interests every time an ideologically communist regime forms".

In the case of the NHS, my understanding is that neoliberal politicians have been pushing to privatize it, and have underfunded it to make it look like it's not working in order to make privatization more appealing. The same is true for many programs in the US too.

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#269

Post by vel0city »

dr_orpheus wrote: post #221
mumblemumble wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing to note about US healthcare is that it seems almost deliberately engineered to not be a market. I've never received significant health care in another country, so I can't say how the US system differs from others with any expertise. But I can say how US health care differs from just about anything else I spend money on: 1. I don't really get to shop for health insurance providers. My employer picks one, may…

For #4 on your list, I remember the insane bills we got when our first child was born. It was also insane the sheer number of bills that we got. First we received a bill for the stay in the hospital. And then we received a bill for the doctor performing the delivery. Okay, fine, it makes some amount of sense, that doctor supports multiple hospitals and isn't technically part of the hospital and staff at that maternit…

I'm still getting bills from various groups almost a year after having a child. Being so far out from the event always makes me cautious about immediately paying them; I'm rather worried about getting a fraudulent bill that looks real, as many of these bills come from central billing offices several states over. It then takes me time to truly connect the dots from the service and looking at insurance history to ensure this bill is legitimate and that I technically do owe that.

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#270

Post by dqpb »

tablespoon wrote: post #171
dqpb wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "everything is a market" ideology had a good run of almost half a century But that never actually happened. Externalities were never part of the market.

>> The "everything is a market" ideology had a good run of almost half a century > But that never actually happened. Externalities were never part of the market. But isn't the essence of an externality that it's a social cost not factored into the market price?

It becomes a social cost because it was not accounted for as a market cost.

It may be that some of these cannot in principle be accounted for, and even more which cannot in practice be accounted for.

But I imagine the majority of externalities could be accounted for if we tried.

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