Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US cities pay too much for buses

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

481–490 of 590 posts

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#481

Post by fma »

nickjj wrote: post #464
moduspol wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not defending insurance but theoretically you do also get a better rate than the uninsured rate just by having it go through the health insurance. I say “theoretically” because I’ve also heard they’re often willing to cut some pretty good deals if you don’t have insurance and pay cash. And I mean “good” relative to the initially billed amount, not “good” relative to what it should actually cost.

I was told it's also illegal in the US for a hospital to bill you as uninsured if you have insurance. You won't get in trouble but the hospital will, but if they ask if you have insurance and you say no when you do, that could change the situation. Again, I'm not a lawyer but this was they told me once a few years ago because I got charged a ridiculous amount for something and wanted to see if it would be cheaper if…

This is correct. I have been in situations where I am told the cash price and then "I cant tell you how much it will be with your insurance". Come to find out cash was A LOT cheaper. They cant undo it.

I have also been in a situation where insurance price was cheaper.

Thereinlies the problem..without know the price people CANNOT make an informed decision. There is no freemarket. This done on purpose and only happens in America.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#482

Post by jeroenhd »

grafmax wrote: post #479
RobKohr wrote: post #202

"Federal funding typically covers 80% of bus purchases, with agencies responsible for the remainder." Well, there is your answer. The one making the purchase isn't the one primarily paying for the purchase. This makes them less sensitive to pricing. Kinda like how expensive healthcare is since it is paid for by insurance. Or how you don't care how much you put on your plate or what you choose to eat at an all you can…

> Kinda like how expensive healthcare is since it is paid for by insurance. If your argument were correct, socialized medicine would lead to higher costs, but it usually does the opposite. Insurance profit margins are a small portion of the overall cost in the US. In inelastic markets, when profit is removed, often you can see lower costs because profit by itself is purely extractive and in an inelastic market compet…

One of the controlling factors for socialized healthcare is that prices are negotiated down by the people paying for the medicine. In countries where private healthcare is extremely rare, pharmaceutical companies can choose between "less profit" or "no sales in that country at all". Sometimes they bluff and in rare cases that means public healthcare has to go without certain medication or certain vendors, but on the whole the price is kept under control (until corruption kicks in, at least).

When the people handing out cheques don't get a chance or don't bother to demand lower prices, things become incredibly expensive. Even if a party like a private insurer tries to negotiate the price down, the healthcare provider can always say "tough shit, guess your customers aren't insured then" as long as there's at least one insurance company willing to pay the full price.

You also see this with electric vehicle incentives. Governments incentivising people to buy electric cars by giving money directly to the consumer just end up with electric vehicles rising in cost because the money is essentially free anyway.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#483

Post by aloha2436 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #443
breatheoften wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes more than just misaligned incentives to get a banking crisis -- you have to have structural corruption preventing the transfer of the loss gradient back to the "misaligned" decision makers. It's somewhat disingenuous (or overly innocent) to reimagine the pathways which power structural corruption as "innocent ignorance in the face of bad incentives". The real world has "actually bad" actors -- not just misal…

> It takes more than just misaligned incentives to get a banking crisis -- you have to have structural corruption preventing the transfer of the loss gradient back to the "misaligned" decision makers. Nah, you can do it just on the basis of information asymmetries. Banks can sell mortgages. People think buying mortgages is safe, because banks don't loan money to people they don't think can pay it back, and even if th…

> and people still buy them

You skip over a very important step here, where people keep buying the MBSes because the ratings agencies are knowingly rating the securities incorrectly. If that didn't happen, the market would be too small to blow up in the way that it did, all of the safe money can't invest if the MBSes aren't AAA.

It's not that no-one noticed in time, it's that the people responsible for noticing were paid to pretend they hadn't. That is the corrupt part.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#484

Post by matthewdgreen »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #449
kortilla wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Markets with prices fixed by the government have fixed prices. This isn’t interesting for markets

It's also a mechanism for some governments to cheat, because medicine is R&D-intensive. Suppose that to devise some treatment for 10 million people worldwide, it costs a billion dollars once for R&D, i.e. $100 each, and then $10 more per person to actually manufacture it. So the average person will have to pay no less than $110. Then some countries say "that costs you $10 to manufacture, we won't pay more than $40" a…

Yeah that’s the story people tell. On the other hand, I need to take a brand name version of a medicine that was patented in the early 20th century, and in the US the co-pay alone costs me $200/mo or more (not including what insurance pays) while I can buy it from Canada for $30 without insurance. (The generics cost a similar amount, but don’t work as well due to bioavailability issues.) So while I appreciate the idea that high US prices are all about R&D, I also have pretty visible evidence that US pharma will just charge whatever the market will bear, even for drugs that are long out of patent and inexpensive to manufacture.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#485

Post by watwut »

isthispermanent wrote: post #89

So the authors basic argument is to offshore bus production. As if that doesn’t carry any negative side effects. This is exactly what the majority of Americans voted against and exactly why the left can’t find its footing. Everyone is now fully aware that offshoring for a cheap sticker price comes with higher, harder to price costs elsewhere.

> This is exactly what the majority of Americans voted against and exactly why the left can’t find its footing.

They voted against trans rights and they voted to cause harm to people they dislike. It had absolutely nothing with buss prices or generic this. The vote for conservatives and Trump is ideological, about wish to wage culture war. It is about cruelty being the goal.

And I mean this 100% seriously. It is absurd to pretend it was about something like this.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#486

Post by lozenge »

4MOAisgoodenuf wrote: post #415
danpalmer wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But a bus isn't just a bus, there are differences in what is needed in different cities That's sometimes true but often not. Utah might need buses to go up the canyons, but might have passed some requirement at some point that said that all the buses need to be able to do this because someone got burnt once by not having enough of those buses. Or some well-meaning (or vote seeking?) city councillor might have put t…

Do you have a specific citeable example of unnecessary “custom requirements” driving up the cost of city buses in the US

Well there's one in the article, the colour of the floors.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#487

Post by Spooky23 »

namibj wrote: post #388
Spooky23 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m on a city e&a board. A couple of PE groups have rolled up the remaining fire truck manufacturers. 3 companies own 75% of the market. This is a well known issue… Google away and there’s lots to read about. I know nothing about cement mixers. A rig that was $500k in 2010 is $2-2.5M now. That’s “cheap” —- volunteer fire companies tend to pimp up the trucks (usually they are paid via grant), cities are cheap on capit…

I assume buying from the European supply is federally banned due to truck import rules? Or would the insurance companies not recognize their capabilities?

I think there are some differences in approach and philosophy. Some are probably real and essential and some are more culture in fire service.

There are most certainly online discussions at great length on the topic.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#488

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

SpicyUme wrote: post #175
ecshafer wrote: post #133

I think that the authors solution, outsourcing production is not quite right, they gloss over other issues. >In a large country like the US, some variation in bus design is inevitable due to differences in conditions like weather and topography. But Silverberg said that many customizations are cosmetic, reflecting agency preferences or color schemes but not affecting vehicle performance. This is kind of absurd, I hav…

But a bus isn't just a bus, there are differences in what is needed in different cities. Some need heat, some need AC, some need both. In Utah there are buses that go up the canyons and they have gearboxes focused on climbing steep hills, while a bus in the valley might never need that ratio and can be optimized for efficiency on the flats. Seattle has buses with electric trolley lines above, and buses that were desi…

One way that China keeps the cost of subways down is by standardizing the train sets.

They have three types of trains (A, B, C) that are used in almost all subway systems across the country. You need a high-capacity train? A. You have a smaller line with fewer passengers? C. Something in-between? B.

There are a few variants for cities with special circumstances. Chongqing uses variants that can handle steeper slopes, because the city is incredibly hilly (like San Francisco).

By standardizing, prices can be kept down. Cities don't have to come up with custom solutions. Just define your needs and pick the standard variant that matches them.

Something similar could be done with buses.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#489

Post by grafmax »

jeroenhd wrote: post #482
grafmax wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kinda like how expensive healthcare is since it is paid for by insurance. If your argument were correct, socialized medicine would lead to higher costs, but it usually does the opposite. Insurance profit margins are a small portion of the overall cost in the US. In inelastic markets, when profit is removed, often you can see lower costs because profit by itself is purely extractive and in an inelastic market compet…

One of the controlling factors for socialized healthcare is that prices are negotiated down by the people paying for the medicine. In countries where private healthcare is extremely rare, pharmaceutical companies can choose between "less profit" or "no sales in that country at all". Sometimes they bluff and in rare cases that means public healthcare has to go without certain medication or certain vendors, but on the…

Subsidies, depending on the market, often produce some degree of the effect you’re talking about, but it’s not black and white. The term is pass-through and full pass-through is rare with partial pass-through being typical. Often with subsidies (like for EVs) prices rise (showing pass-through) but it rarely cancels out, for example this study showing every $1000 of subsidy in California lowering the post-subsidy cost by around $800 - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00472... - so only around $200 pass-through.

But this is a more elastic market than healthcare. To your point about negotiating power - it’s elasticity that gives negotiating power to consumers vs not.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#490

Post by bluGill »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #390
esafak wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hearing you say we should have self-driving buses... which is feasible since their route is fixed.

Or buy 10 Teslas for the same price and offer superior service.

That is worse service. A tesla has low capacity and so cannot handle multiple groups randomly showing up at the same time. The point of great transit is you don't think, the system is ready for you.
Post reply on HN