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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

#311

Post by terr-dav »

virgilp wrote: post #305
terr-dav wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bolshevik revolution was carried out under the assumption that world revolution would follow, particularly in Germany. This assumption did not hold, and Russia did not have the needed technological developments to sustain themselves. Cuba is the best example of a successful communist-ish state. Most if its struggles are due to sanctions imposed by the US and enforced via its allies across the world.

> This assumption did not hold "if the entire world is a sh*thole, nobody will be able to tell it's due to communism"? I fail to see what "needed technological developments" would West Germany give them. > Cuba is the best example of a successful communist-ish state Successful as in "not completely failed, unlike all the others". Look, I sympathize with their struggles being so close to the US & all, but the fact tha…

Actually, forget I said anything about communism. My intent was to address the original topic, but I just couldn't resist inserting my take on communism to the original analogy used.

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#312

Post by CraigJPerry »

syshum wrote: post #280
CraigJPerry wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re assuming universal access to healthcare then, which is not the case. What is the 5 year survival rate for someone who cannot afford cancer care?

I am not assuming anything at all, people that attempt to inject affordability into the care debate are doing so for disingenuous reasons. The question of affordability is different from the question of quality care, we can solve the affordability problem with out having to lower the over all standard of care which is what you are advocating for, the bringing down of the overall quality of care in an attempt to incre…

>> people that attempt to inject affordability into the care debate are doing so for disingenuous reasons

What exactly is disingenuous about wanting more people to live longer with higher “quality of life” for less overall spend on healthcare? You can’t achieve this without resolving the affordability issues.

>> which is what you are advocating for, the bringing down of the overall quality of care

With all due respect, you’ve made that up to fit with your world view. It’s certainly not something i’ve advocated for.

Those triple heart bypass operations i started the thread with - the 10x more expensive US procedure results in 3 year shorter life expectency post operation.

It costs more, and it’s not as good a result?

(I am being slightly disingenuous at this point - the reason the US outcomes are poorer despite being 10x more expensive for the same operation are due to differences in the health of the average patient - in the UK because healthcare is free at the point of access, there tend to be earlier interventions, in the US there is a marked difference in severity of presentation - ostensibly people wait longer until they’re really unwell before accessing healthcare)

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#313

Post by spaetzleesser »

mrweasel wrote: post #216
spaetzleesser wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about why it SHOULD but doesn’t.

That was kinda my point. I can see why you’d do health like the US does, but I fail to understand why it doesn’t work in the US. In theory it could be much cheaper, but is the US seriously so corrupt that it underminds the free market that is values so highly. Seriously, I don’t know.

It’s pretty simple why it doesn’t work. For most people somebody else (usually the employer) chooses a health plan for them. The employer chooses the health plan that’s convenient for them, not for the employee. The patient has no visibility into the contracts between providers and insurance. The patient has (almost) no insight into actual pricing. So basically we are pretending that this is a market but the patient has no say in any of the choices made for them.

It’s a market for employers, insurances and hospitals. All of them have vastly different interests from the patient and are passing on their costs to the patient . The patient is left with having to pay for somebody else’s decisions.

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#314

Post by bushbaba »

terr-dav wrote: post #262
bushbaba wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 def…

Those without insurance are quoted prices different than what insurance companies pay.

Even getting a price quote is often impossible.

Government should enforce the same pricing to all parties or allow everyone to get the same prices Medicare negotiated.

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#315

Post by netizen-936824 »

vorpalhex wrote: post #287
netizen-936824 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

We can ask why those areas with no competition are so, and it is due to overwhelming anti-market bias that makes it hard for other ISPs to compete or even outlaws it directly. Meanwhile cities that have setup one touch laws or fixed right-of-way have seen robust competition emerge. One area where markets do poorly are where the cost of service exceeds profit, like rural areas. This is an area where government interve…

Sounds to me like ISPs should be regulated or managed the same way as telephone and electricity providers

Along with healthcare

People don't seem to have issues getting electricity service or telephone service in those regions. In this case, the special treatment of those services means that people don't get left out

Rich people aren't the only ones who deserve healthcare or good internet

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#316

Post by ksec »

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #290
hitpointdrew wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the fact that healthcare is already a consumer product in the US I would strongly disagree with this. Healthcare in the US is currently a cartel system, not a consumer product/market system. If healthcare were a consumer product then: 1. It wouldn't be tied to or dependent on my employment. 2. Prices for medical treatment wouldn't be hidden/obfuscated by medical providers. 3. Insurance providers wouldn't be restric…

I only put this out there because I feel it needs to be, but we can't just put all of health-care into a single basket. Emergency medicine should be separated out of these discussions as there is no "Free Market" option, just as there is no real free market option for police or fire services. For optional surgery or cosmetic treatment, sure. You can argue a free market option, but that's why I always think there shou…

Which I think and correct me if I am wrong, is currently the norm for most developed countries?

It is sort of strange it needs to be explicitly written out, at the same time for those of us not from US we just took it for granted and never think much about the system.

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#317

Post by nybble41 »

throwawaygh wrote: post #300
hitpointdrew wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the fact that healthcare is already a consumer product in the US I would strongly disagree with this. Healthcare in the US is currently a cartel system, not a consumer product/market system. If healthcare were a consumer product then: 1. It wouldn't be tied to or dependent on my employment. 2. Prices for medical treatment wouldn't be hidden/obfuscated by medical providers. 3. Insurance providers wouldn't be restric…

It's not (just) about whether healthcare is a human right. E.g., interstate transportation on surface roads isn't a human right, but markets lost out to collective action. Why? Because building a well-functioning market for 8 lane interstates across an entire mostly-rural country was impossible in the 20th century (and probably still is). So, the other important question to ask is the following: how feasible is it to…

> E.g., interstate transportation on surface roads isn't a human right, but markets lost out to collective action. Why?

Because if there is a public option funded by taxation (whether you use it or not) and a comparable or even marginally superior private option which you have to pay use fees for (on top of the taxes), the public option will win every time. Simply put, do you want to pay once or twice for the same service? It's not like one car taking the toll road instead of the public road reduces that driver's tax burden by any noticeable degree. In antitrust terms, the government is using its monopoly in one area, "protection" (mostly from itself, as with any protection racket), as leverage to create a monopoly in another area, transportation. The surprising part is that there are some areas where the public roads are just so bad that you can actually run a profitable toll road alongside them. Level the playing field by requiring the government to fund the construction and maintenance of its interstate highways exclusively through use fees and I expect you'll see a very different result.

It's the same with any other bundled service. Having decided to subscribe to a certain service package one tends to stick with the included services, even if on an individual basis there are better services available at lower cost elsewhere. It only becomes viable to switch to the better service provider if you can replace all the bundled services. Except in this case that isn't even an option since there is no opting out of (paying for) the tax-funded package.

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#318

Post by supertrope »

sokoloff wrote: post #64
robbiep wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better end of life care would revolutionise healthcare. No country does this well

Not everyone agrees on what “better” means though. When you start putting dollars and days into formulae around dying, many people lose their damn minds…

Failing to plan is planning to fail. Those formula already exist and they're used at insurance companies.

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#319

Post by unixhero »

frockington1 wrote: post #194
throw_m239339 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

No they won't because they have stashed away trillions (edit: 12 trillions) in a mutual hedge fund for a rainy day. [0] https://www.nbim.no

Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product

#320

Post by UnpossibleJim »

ksec wrote: post #316
UnpossibleJim wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only put this out there because I feel it needs to be, but we can't just put all of health-care into a single basket. Emergency medicine should be separated out of these discussions as there is no "Free Market" option, just as there is no real free market option for police or fire services. For optional surgery or cosmetic treatment, sure. You can argue a free market option, but that's why I always think there shou…

Which I think and correct me if I am wrong, is currently the norm for most developed countries? It is sort of strange it needs to be explicitly written out, at the same time for those of us not from US we just took it for granted and never think much about the system.

Preaching to the choir, but you might be surprised at how many of us in the US don't think these things through. Now, I do think a lot of this has to do with political marketing, so to speak. Let's not kid our selves, the health care industry makes fairly large corporate donations to both political parties and there is no real discussion to get rid of privatized, emergency medicine. Even our "radicals" like Bernie Sanders, who aren't even that far left, are loathe to bring that up in the US as the indoctrination has been dug so deep =[
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