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I noticed that, too. Free marketeers: how does price transparency improve prices for emergency room visits?

• rland 8y ago
  Perhaps it doesn't, for those weird edge cases where they have to bring the unconscious patient in and have him assessed 5 different ways. Situations like that are the domain of insurance agencies. But most medical care (the majority of the cost) is not rendered like that. Most of it is routine and predictable, and should be priced transparently as such.
  • jancsika 8y ago
    > Perhaps it doesn't, for those weird edge cases where they have to bring the unconscious patient in and have him assessed 5 different ways. Does "weird edge cases" cover the 790,000 people who have a heart attack every year[1]? If not, how does price transparency improve their ambulance ride or change which hospital is their destination? [1] https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/heart_attack.htm https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/heart_attack.htm
• QML 8y ago
  Not a necessarily a supporter of free markets, but I’d argue that more information and transparency is crucial for market efficiency. Take for example arbitrage; it disappears when enough people have access to “private information”, that in game theoretic setting, drive market price to equal the “true” price.