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their life literally depends on it. That would only explain emergency procedure costs. Everyday healthcare costs that are not life-or-death are also extremely

by crusso 9y ago

their life literally depends on it. That would only explain emergency procedure costs. Everyday healthcare costs that are not life-or-death are also extremely high. Almost all of the regulations in the medical industry are for ensuring people are safe Are tax laws that benefit employers and lock employees into healthcare plans there to keep people safe? How about laws that prevent companies from selling insurance across state lines? Allowing companies to confiscate unused FSA money at the end of every year? And even then, there are many regulations and laws that I'm sure are ostensibly to keep people safe in the short term - but they have the negative effect of stifling innovation that could bring down costs and make people safer in the long run. Look at the disastrously-slow pace of the FDA drug approval process that has continued for decades.

fao_ 9y ago
> That would only explain emergency procedure costs. No. It also includes maintenance medicine. If I stop taking my asthma medicine, my quality of life would rapidly deteriorate and I would sooner or later have to be admitted to A&E for an asthma attack. So my life depends on those medicines. The same for people with Depression, Chronic Pain, Severe Vitamin Deficiencies, etc. > How about laws that prevent companies from selling insurance across state lines? That seems extremely logical given how much variation in local law exists in North America. > but they have the negative effect of stifling innovation that could bring down costs and make people safer in the long run could. Given the sheer amount of bad science in medicine at the moment (e.g. refusing to publish negative studies), it is not likely. Medicine is difficult, and where we have rushed drugs through we have an extremely poor track record (Such as, a type of SRIs being prescribed, that later was discovered to raise the incidence of suicide among adolescents. In this specific instance this was known before it went on market, but the papers were not published).

by crusso 9y ago

fao_ 9y ago

> That would only explain emergency procedure costs. No. It also includes maintenance medicine. If I stop taking my asthma medicine, my quality of life would rapidly deteriorate and I would sooner or later have to be admitted to A&E for an asthma attack. So my life depends on those medicines. The same for people with Depression, Chronic Pain, Severe Vitamin Deficiencies, etc. > How about laws that prevent companies from selling insurance across state lines? That seems extremely logical given how much variation in local law exists in North America. > but they have the negative effect of stifling innovation that could bring down costs and make people safer in the long run could. Given the sheer amount of bad science in medicine at the moment (e.g. refusing to publish negative studies), it is not likely. Medicine is difficult, and where we have rushed drugs through we have an extremely poor track record (Such as, a type of SRIs being prescribed, that later was discovered to raise the incidence of suicide among adolescents. In this specific instance this was known before it went on market, but the papers were not published).