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Calling the American healthcare system "free-market" is disingenuous at worse and hilarious at best. It's probably the most regulated and convoluted sector of t

Calling the American healthcare system "free-market" is disingenuous at worse and hilarious at best. It's probably the most regulated and convoluted sector of the US economy. In contrast, the pet healthcare system in the US is much less regulated. As a result, getting care for my pets is so much easier to navigate (you can actually get price quotes!) and much multitudes cheaper than human healthcare, despite the similar medical procedures and training required of doctors.

brianwawok 10y ago
Okay this is the worst argument for an unregulated healthcare system I have ever heard. 1) How much money goes into pet medicine research vs human? 2) What happens when a pet is sick and the cost of care exceeds money of owner? You want a health care system where you use 15-20 year old medicine with no research, and most bills > $1000 lead to euthanasia? Sure that would be a cheap healthcare system...
- refurb 10y ago
  You want a health care system where you use 15-20 year old medicine with no research What? Animal health is a huge industry. Zoetis was spun off of Pfizer and is making money hand over fist. Lots of new animal drugs are approved each year.
- xkcd-sucks 10y ago
  Animal drugs are the same as human drugs, plus all the human drugs which fail fairly late in the development pipeline. Animal physiology re: absorption, toxicity, metabolism etc. is pretty well studied because most mammals are used for drug testing/as models of human disease.
- crpatino 10y ago
  You have packed a large number of biases in a single line: > You want a health care system where you use 15-20 year old medicine with no research, and most bills > $1000 lead to euthanasia? Sure that would be a cheap healthcare system... 15-20 year technology (and I hope you agree modern medicine is, broadly speaking, a form of technology) is not old; it is robust and time tested. Today, building business critical operations in Fortune 500 companies on top of Linux is a no brainer, but not so much in 1996; and whoever told you otherwise back then was both unprofessional and self-deluded with evangelist zeal. Your claim that veterinarian medicine has "no research" does not hold water either. Sure, there might be less money being expended in researching animal health care than human health care, but this does not mean that the science behind veterinarian medicine is any less valid. If anything, it's probably more valid because there are so many less emotional hot-button issues and underhanded political agendas lurking around it. About the $1k bills, there are two ways to see it. You claim that it is a bad thing that most >$1K procedures end up with pacient death. I, on the other hand, would like to point out that this is a proof that it is possible for a whole calss of modern health care professionals to charge <$1k for procedures that solve most non life-threatening conditions and remain gainfully in business. Note this argument is valid regradless of your position on human euthanasia. Finally, your use of "cheap" healthcare system is used as a double-entendre. You are conflating "affordable" with "stingy" in that single word. As exposed above, you can clearly see that the first not necessarily implies the second.
whamlastxmas 10y ago
It's funny (and sad) how difficult it is for people with real problems to get doctors to prescribe them something like Xanax. My friend has a dog that does terribly on car trips, and the vet gave her a huge fucking bottle of Xanax bars. The same Xanax people use. A shit load of it.
eldavido 10y ago
A better example might be dental care, which has many of the same nice properties as veterinary medicine, but is harder for the haters to dismiss. People get elective dental procedures all the time (braces) that are highly affordable and conveniently delivered, without getting pushed into bankruptcy.
wvenable 10y ago
The problem with that comparison is that often we euthanize pets when the expense is no longer justified. We don't do that with humans. As long as human life is on the line, it will never be truly "free-market". Everyone will pay beyond their means if it means they can stay alive.
- nitid_name 10y ago
  Hence the statistic where 1/3 of your lifetime medical expenses come in the last year of life.
joe_the_user 10y ago
Calling the American healthcare system "free-market" is disingenuous at worse and hilarious at best. You're right - on the literal level. BUT parent said: "It is just one other indicator of the flaws of the free market approach to everything in the US" - and if their statement is interpreted as implying - "the flaws in what's called the free market approach" then the rest of their statement stands. The health care system is a good example of the profit-driven, marketized-through-regulation, financial-speculation driven system. And the thing is that no amount of praise of the literal free market is going to change these market-regulated-industry-fusions into free market. I mean, it's a standard approach for functionaries to praise the free market then jump to whatever gawd-awful financialization serves those functionaries' backers. I mean, "just let them die" is usually an option for seriously ill pets. Generally society frowns on this fashion of treating humans. So "everyone" agrees some compromise is necessary in human health care - but naturally one then wakes to find the latest compromise is a cleverly constructed worst-of-all-possible-world except for X many large interests (education, healthcare, prisons etc).
specialist 10y ago
I'm keen to learn more about these Freedom Markets™. Can you provide one or more examples, in the real world?

brianwawok 10y ago

Okay this is the worst argument for an unregulated healthcare system I have ever heard. 1) How much money goes into pet medicine research vs human? 2) What happens when a pet is sick and the cost of care exceeds money of owner? You want a health care system where you use 15-20 year old medicine with no research, and most bills > $1000 lead to euthanasia? Sure that would be a cheap healthcare system...

refurb 10y ago
You want a health care system where you use 15-20 year old medicine with no research What? Animal health is a huge industry. Zoetis was spun off of Pfizer and is making money hand over fist. Lots of new animal drugs are approved each year.
xkcd-sucks 10y ago
Animal drugs are the same as human drugs, plus all the human drugs which fail fairly late in the development pipeline. Animal physiology re: absorption, toxicity, metabolism etc. is pretty well studied because most mammals are used for drug testing/as models of human disease.
crpatino 10y ago
You have packed a large number of biases in a single line: > You want a health care system where you use 15-20 year old medicine with no research, and most bills > $1000 lead to euthanasia? Sure that would be a cheap healthcare system... 15-20 year technology (and I hope you agree modern medicine is, broadly speaking, a form of technology) is not old; it is robust and time tested. Today, building business critical operations in Fortune 500 companies on top of Linux is a no brainer, but not so much in 1996; and whoever told you otherwise back then was both unprofessional and self-deluded with evangelist zeal. Your claim that veterinarian medicine has "no research" does not hold water either. Sure, there might be less money being expended in researching animal health care than human health care, but this does not mean that the science behind veterinarian medicine is any less valid. If anything, it's probably more valid because there are so many less emotional hot-button issues and underhanded political agendas lurking around it. About the $1k bills, there are two ways to see it. You claim that it is a bad thing that most >$1K procedures end up with pacient death. I, on the other hand, would like to point out that this is a proof that it is possible for a whole calss of modern health care professionals to charge <$1k for procedures that solve most non life-threatening conditions and remain gainfully in business. Note this argument is valid regradless of your position on human euthanasia. Finally, your use of "cheap" healthcare system is used as a double-entendre. You are conflating "affordable" with "stingy" in that single word. As exposed above, you can clearly see that the first not necessarily implies the second.

whamlastxmas 10y ago

It's funny (and sad) how difficult it is for people with real problems to get doctors to prescribe them something like Xanax. My friend has a dog that does terribly on car trips, and the vet gave her a huge fucking bottle of Xanax bars. The same Xanax people use. A shit load of it.

eldavido 10y ago

A better example might be dental care, which has many of the same nice properties as veterinary medicine, but is harder for the haters to dismiss. People get elective dental procedures all the time (braces) that are highly affordable and conveniently delivered, without getting pushed into bankruptcy.

wvenable 10y ago

The problem with that comparison is that often we euthanize pets when the expense is no longer justified. We don't do that with humans. As long as human life is on the line, it will never be truly "free-market". Everyone will pay beyond their means if it means they can stay alive.

nitid_name 10y ago
Hence the statistic where 1/3 of your lifetime medical expenses come in the last year of life.

joe_the_user 10y ago

Calling the American healthcare system "free-market" is disingenuous at worse and hilarious at best. You're right - on the literal level. BUT parent said: "It is just one other indicator of the flaws of the free market approach to everything in the US" - and if their statement is interpreted as implying - "the flaws in what's called the free market approach" then the rest of their statement stands. The health care system is a good example of the profit-driven, marketized-through-regulation, financial-speculation driven system. And the thing is that no amount of praise of the literal free market is going to change these market-regulated-industry-fusions into free market. I mean, it's a standard approach for functionaries to praise the free market then jump to whatever gawd-awful financialization serves those functionaries' backers. I mean, "just let them die" is usually an option for seriously ill pets. Generally society frowns on this fashion of treating humans. So "everyone" agrees some compromise is necessary in human health care - but naturally one then wakes to find the latest compromise is a cleverly constructed worst-of-all-possible-world except for X many large interests (education, healthcare, prisons etc).

specialist 10y ago

I'm keen to learn more about these Freedom Markets™. Can you provide one or more examples, in the real world?