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Sure - in America, healthcare is far from a free market because: 1) We don’t pay our own healthcare bills, we pay for our healthcare through insurance. As a re
by bhupy 8y ago
Sure - in America, healthcare is far from a free market because:
1) We don’t pay our own healthcare bills, we pay for our healthcare through insurance. As a result, there isn’t a pricing system in place, much like there is for other critical goods and services with price-inelastic demand like food and housing. This is caused by regulations that require employers to provide health insurance for their employees, and most recently the mandate that requires individuals to purchase insurance. We’ve essentially forced a world in which insurance is the only way one can pay for healthcare.
2) Our healthcare supply is artificially limited, which forces higher up prices. The MRI “certificate of need” is one such example, there are countless others. Medical licensure, in general, drives up the price to see just a primary care physician. In the US, just becoming a basic physician that prescribes antibiotics takes at least 8 years of expensive schooling. As a result, doctors in America earn more than their counterparts in every other country (adjusted for PPP)[1].
There are a couple solutions that the market can bring about. One of them is to get rid of the employer mandate. The fact that I have to worry about losing my insurance if I get fired or leave my job is totally bonkers. I don’t have to worry about that at all with my car insurance, it’s a cheap monthly premium that adds on to my cost of living, just like my monthly food expenses or my shelter expenses (read: rent). The reason why non-employer provided healthcare is more expensive is that the pool of people buying that type of insurance is much smaller than the pool of people that are happily receiving their employer-provided health insurance. If every single one of these employees participated in the same insurance market as those that are either unemployed or self-employed, premiums can come down.
The other solution is cut out insurance for most healthcare. We don’t use car insurance to pay for oil changes and servicing, we only use it to pay for catastrophic accidents. Absent the regulations we have today, the market might look the same for healthcare: you pay out of pocket for basic healthcare like going to the doctor when you’re sick or other preventative care (sort of like an oil change for your body). Insurance might kick in when you get cancer or heart disease. I come from India, where it costs about Rs. 500 out of pocket to see a good doctor that has an MBBS. This is the price of a movie ticket, in India. The concept of using insurance to pay for such care is unheard of. In America, paying for a general checkup, without insurance, can cost $300 out of pocket - absolutely absurd.
Singapore is a great example of a country that has a largely market driven healthcare system. Unless you’re poor, you pay out of pocket for all healthcare, in a private market. The government steps in and pays for healthcare for poor people, and for catastrophic care (think: universal high deductible healthcare plans).
[1] https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/how-much-do-doctors-in-other-countries-make/ https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/how-much-do-do...
- StreamBright 8y agoExactly this. In Germany the private insurance is actually cheaper than the public one, you can purchase private on the top of public and so on. As a result of a much freer market the prices are much lower.
- denzil_correa 8y ago> In Germany the private insurance is actually cheaper than the public one Well, the public insurance is a percentage of your income. The private one is based on many opaque factors. Private cheaper than public would be a more than a stretch without appropriate qualifiers.
- StreamBright 8y agoSure, in my situation this is the case. I am not sure about others or how much percentage of the population has the same situation.
- mamon 8y agoAnd what exactly does this private insurance cover? In Poland private healthcare is fine for healthy young people that occasionally catch a cold, or have their ankle sprinkled, because it saves a lot of wait time. Treating any serious illness (think heart attack, cancer, diabeties, etc.) is either insanely expensive or not covered at all by private insurers, so public health care is your only chance here.
- fzeroracer 8y agoI asked for an actual quantifier of how much of a 'free market' something is. That's the whole crux of my debate: In attempt to make something more of a 'free market' we cut regulations, which ends up hurting people and which companies take advantage of. Then prices go up, we assume the free market is not free enough, so we cut more regulations. Repeat until people are dying. A great example of such an issue is one where it was literally impossible for my parents to get any sort of healthcare because it was deemed that they had a pre-existing condition. No insurance provider would bother with them. And for a lot of Americans paying anything for out of pocket care is impossible. My parents couldn't afford a movie ticket due to the poverty they're in, let alone the price of generic drugs for the myriad of medical issues they're going through. You keep bringing up the example of Singapore which works...but they also have a public option. We're not even to that point yet and making some of these radical changes without care to the poorest of Americans will lead to disaster.