3 ms·

Pain, cost, inconvenience, etc are all marginal motivators even if they don't have the 100% effect on people's behavior that you'd like. Some people are going

Pain, cost, inconvenience, etc are all marginal motivators even if they don't have the 100% effect on people's behavior that you'd like. Some people are going to be dumb full stop. But for everyone else, giving them more information is probably going to be useful and on the whole, will move things in the right direction. Keep in mind that I said "might" not "definitely will for sure 100%" so that's in line with my above comments re on the margin.

VLM 11y ago
I think our disagreement might fundamentally revolve around you seeing "might" and I'm observing "almost always does not". I'm still interested in the idea of listing and evaluating motivators, so we've listed four of varying opinions of effectiveness, it would be interesting to identify a fifth (or more) of equal or better effectiveness. Thinking of what PR people like to use, there's sex appeal, I suppose that could be used in public service TV commercials as a new fifth strategy. I have no idea how to sell "preventative EKGs are sexy", but I'm no marketing guy, and somehow they sell cars and junk food with sex appeal, so its probably possible to sell EKGs and immunizations and diabetic glucose test screens under the same strategy... somehow. This sounds like such a bad idea, I hesitate to declare it a serious fifth strategy idea.
- msandford 11y ago
  Fair enough. I guess part of the appeal of having published prices is what other people could then do with them, too. Not just that I could shop around for rotator cuff surgery or a hip replacement, but actually interesting stuff that's only done internally right now. If prices were published then someone could track the prices of a great many procedures and look for procedures that were getting cheaper. You could then interview people at institutions that are able to do those procedures less expensively and publish it. Other institutions might then follow suit and the savings could be shared widely. The lessons might cross boundaries and spark other folks to recognize that X is very similar to Y and they can use the same lessons to make Y cheaper, easier, more foolproof, etc. Further, with reasonable pricing information and some measure of quality it would be pretty easy for people (and perhaps insurance companies) to encourage medical tourism of a great many varieties. Maybe the country doctor or dentist is very skilled but wanted the country lifestyle and doesn't want to drive 2 hours a day to the city. But perhaps city folks would be happy to drive to the country to enjoy a cheaper procedure, hospital stay, etc versus in the city. Right now this kind of arbitrage isn't possible again because prices aren't disseminated widely. Finally when we're talking about human lives which we think are intrinsically valuable and arguably priceless, then I'm not sure that "almost always does not" doesn't mean that something isn't valuable. Young people with families buy life insurance against something which "almost always does not" happen, namely their premature death and yet nobody argues that life insurance shouldn't be allowed. Similarly for any one individual wearing a seatbelt "almost always does not" do them any good since car accident rates are very low, at least on a percentage basis. http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2011/07/27/how-many-times-will-you-crash-your-car/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2011/07/27/how-many...

VLM 11y ago

I think our disagreement might fundamentally revolve around you seeing "might" and I'm observing "almost always does not". I'm still interested in the idea of listing and evaluating motivators, so we've listed four of varying opinions of effectiveness, it would be interesting to identify a fifth (or more) of equal or better effectiveness. Thinking of what PR people like to use, there's sex appeal, I suppose that could be used in public service TV commercials as a new fifth strategy. I have no idea how to sell "preventative EKGs are sexy", but I'm no marketing guy, and somehow they sell cars and junk food with sex appeal, so its probably possible to sell EKGs and immunizations and diabetic glucose test screens under the same strategy... somehow. This sounds like such a bad idea, I hesitate to declare it a serious fifth strategy idea.

msandford 11y ago
Fair enough. I guess part of the appeal of having published prices is what other people could then do with them, too. Not just that I could shop around for rotator cuff surgery or a hip replacement, but actually interesting stuff that's only done internally right now. If prices were published then someone could track the prices of a great many procedures and look for procedures that were getting cheaper. You could then interview people at institutions that are able to do those procedures less expensively and publish it. Other institutions might then follow suit and the savings could be shared widely. The lessons might cross boundaries and spark other folks to recognize that X is very similar to Y and they can use the same lessons to make Y cheaper, easier, more foolproof, etc. Further, with reasonable pricing information and some measure of quality it would be pretty easy for people (and perhaps insurance companies) to encourage medical tourism of a great many varieties. Maybe the country doctor or dentist is very skilled but wanted the country lifestyle and doesn't want to drive 2 hours a day to the city. But perhaps city folks would be happy to drive to the country to enjoy a cheaper procedure, hospital stay, etc versus in the city. Right now this kind of arbitrage isn't possible again because prices aren't disseminated widely. Finally when we're talking about human lives which we think are intrinsically valuable and arguably priceless, then I'm not sure that "almost always does not" doesn't mean that something isn't valuable. Young people with families buy life insurance against something which "almost always does not" happen, namely their premature death and yet nobody argues that life insurance shouldn't be allowed. Similarly for any one individual wearing a seatbelt "almost always does not" do them any good since car accident rates are very low, at least on a percentage basis. http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2011/07/27/how-many-times-will-you-crash-your-car/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2011/07/27/how-many...