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If it's such a free market, I implore HNers to explain what it might take to start your own free market hospital in the United States. Let me know what regulati

If it's such a free market, I implore HNers to explain what it might take to start your own free market hospital in the United States. Let me know what regulations you'll need to meet. Compare to opening a cafe. And I'm not saying a hospital or a cafe ought to be at all similar. That's not the point. The point is how odd it is to pretend that health care is a "free market" in the current state as some rhetorical device to associate these surprise fees with free markets. At a cafe, you don't get charged for using a stirrer or spoon or napkins. A cafe doesn't charge you for sitting on a stool. Free market health care would operate in the same way, if it existed. You get charged for your operation, they don't add in fees for specific items that you needed that would reasonably be expected as part of the process (a Tylenol pill, using a tissue, the gloves your surgeon wore). And again, I'm not suggesting this is how it ought to be, but let's not be disingenuous and pretend that absurd, opaque prices are somehow a result of a free market.

mattkrause 8y ago
> Free market health care would operate in the same way, if it existed. Any particular reason you think that? Cafes sell standardized products--if we order the same small latte, we get the same thing and pay the same price. If you "require" something different, you pay a different price. Almond milk, for example, is $0.50 extra, near me. Flavored syrups cost a quarter. Medicine is a lot less one-size-fits-all. Your fractured arm could be harder to repair than mine and thus takes longer or requires more supplies (and those aren't cheap--bone screws can run $40+/each). Maybe a diagnostic test is inconclusive and needs a more expensive follow-up. You can't really know how some of this is going to go beforehand. I suppose some places could offer a prix fixe option, based on their expected cost + a safety margin. I bet many wouldn't though, because the variance can be huge.

mattkrause 8y ago

> Free market health care would operate in the same way, if it existed. Any particular reason you think that? Cafes sell standardized products--if we order the same small latte, we get the same thing and pay the same price. If you "require" something different, you pay a different price. Almond milk, for example, is $0.50 extra, near me. Flavored syrups cost a quarter. Medicine is a lot less one-size-fits-all. Your fractured arm could be harder to repair than mine and thus takes longer or requires more supplies (and those aren't cheap--bone screws can run $40+/each). Maybe a diagnostic test is inconclusive and needs a more expensive follow-up. You can't really know how some of this is going to go beforehand. I suppose some places could offer a prix fixe option, based on their expected cost + a safety margin. I bet many wouldn't though, because the variance can be huge.