3 ms·

I agree, but I think they are talking about a different aspect of "not knowing". Which is, I get health coverage from my employer, I go to the doctor, I get som

I agree, but I think they are talking about a different aspect of "not knowing". Which is, I get health coverage from my employer, I go to the doctor, I get some sort of bill that seems high but not crazy, I assume that is the cost of visit. But I am not seeing the transactions behind the scene between doctor/insurer/employer that may be several times what I am directly out of pocket, but pay indirectly.

gameswithgo 8y ago
there are other kinds of problems. You are in the hospital, you feel queasy after surgery, nurse asks if you would like medication for that. "how much is it?" If you even think to ask that, usually they will not know, and can't or will not find out for you. So you can't make a rational decision about whether to deal with the discomfort or not. Similarly, doctors often won't know the cost difference between various medication options, and those costs are always extremely difficult to figure out since there are usually various coupons that last for various amounts of time, which if you are willing to sort through you can game the system a lot. But in the long run it would be better if those games didn't exist. Switching asthma meds as you run through coupon time limits isn't really the healthiest thing anyway. Or you are hit by a car, an amublance shows up "what will the bill be? Oh I'll call a different service" no, you can't do that while you are bleeding out, nor will you have any way of knowing which hospital will have the best rates to fix you, you don't even know what is wrong yet! One might conclude that private, free markets don't make sense in this domain at all, perhaps.
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > there are other kinds of problems. You are in the hospital, you feel queasy after surgery, nurse asks if you would like medication for that. "how much is it?" If you even think to ask that, usually they will not know, and can't or will not find out for you. So you can't make a rational decision about whether to deal with the discomfort or not. followed by > One might conclude that private, free markets don't make sense in this domain at all, perhaps. is an odd conclusion to draw, since the agent primarily responsible for the inability for providers to provide transparent prices to privately insured patients is, ironically, Medicare.
  - gameswithgo 8y ago
    >is an odd conclusion to draw, since the agent primarily responsible for the inability for providers to provide transparent prices to privately insured patients is, ironically, Medicare. I'm not sure how you can be so certain that is the 1st order reason. The pricing situation seems to often be obfuscated by our private insurance companies as well. When people have different insurance plans, with different back room deals on rates, and different customer out of pocket rules, or none at all, how is the doctor to know what your price is going to be? How does erasing medicare from the equation fix that?

gameswithgo 8y ago

there are other kinds of problems. You are in the hospital, you feel queasy after surgery, nurse asks if you would like medication for that. "how much is it?" If you even think to ask that, usually they will not know, and can't or will not find out for you. So you can't make a rational decision about whether to deal with the discomfort or not. Similarly, doctors often won't know the cost difference between various medication options, and those costs are always extremely difficult to figure out since there are usually various coupons that last for various amounts of time, which if you are willing to sort through you can game the system a lot. But in the long run it would be better if those games didn't exist. Switching asthma meds as you run through coupon time limits isn't really the healthiest thing anyway. Or you are hit by a car, an amublance shows up "what will the bill be? Oh I'll call a different service" no, you can't do that while you are bleeding out, nor will you have any way of knowing which hospital will have the best rates to fix you, you don't even know what is wrong yet! One might conclude that private, free markets don't make sense in this domain at all, perhaps.

chimeracoder 8y ago
> there are other kinds of problems. You are in the hospital, you feel queasy after surgery, nurse asks if you would like medication for that. "how much is it?" If you even think to ask that, usually they will not know, and can't or will not find out for you. So you can't make a rational decision about whether to deal with the discomfort or not. followed by > One might conclude that private, free markets don't make sense in this domain at all, perhaps. is an odd conclusion to draw, since the agent primarily responsible for the inability for providers to provide transparent prices to privately insured patients is, ironically, Medicare.
- gameswithgo 8y ago
  >is an odd conclusion to draw, since the agent primarily responsible for the inability for providers to provide transparent prices to privately insured patients is, ironically, Medicare. I'm not sure how you can be so certain that is the 1st order reason. The pricing situation seems to often be obfuscated by our private insurance companies as well. When people have different insurance plans, with different back room deals on rates, and different customer out of pocket rules, or none at all, how is the doctor to know what your price is going to be? How does erasing medicare from the equation fix that?