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There are shades of bad. The US health care system with price transparency is better than the US health care system without it. The same procedure can cost 1,

There are shades of bad. The US health care system with price transparency is better than the US health care system without it. The same procedure can cost 1,000x more if you go across town. It's been long reported that Hospitals mostly pull prices out of their asses. The health care problem in the US is not just a health insurance problem, it is also a health care provider problem. Even if you had a single payer system, pricing like this is insane.

braythwayt 7y ago
What you say is true, but does not negate or discount what I said in any way. Again, with the XY problem... If someone asks for X, but really needs Y and there is a better way to get Y than to help them with X... Of course X is better than no X and no Y. But that doesn't change the fact that Y is much, much better than X. And in the case of health care, it is not even close. Price transparency may lead to each person paying a little less, or at least being less stressed, but it still won't fix the fact that America has the most expensive system, with the worst outcomes, in the developed world. So yeah, X is better than --X, and ++X even better than X, but that doesn't change the fact that Y is still the correct solution when you focus on the problem you really want to solve rather than making the incorrect solution slightly less incorrect. --- Also, IANAE, but I do not believe that in Canada, hospitals are permitted to have a 1000x variance in pricing. I think that for those things we socialize, the government sets the price.
- carapace 7y ago
  I think you're right (profit motive and health care don't mix) but then how do you cut the Gordian Knot? I'm cautiously hopeful that price transparency might be a start.
  - mrguyorama 7y ago
    Honestly? Stop electing people who scream that public health is a communist devil plot?
    - carapace 7y ago
      I'll see what I can do.
AtlasBarfed 7y ago
Like the education system, the health care system's retail price is basically ludicrous. This is to extract maximum situational revenue, basically get as much from the patient as they can afford. Colleges charge 100k, but will adapt spending (as little as possible) to get students to be able to pay. They even preferentially let in richer students. It's the ideal way for a business to make money if they can charge based on how much each individual can pay (and bankruptcy is someone-else's-problem in both healthcare and tuition)

braythwayt 7y ago

What you say is true, but does not negate or discount what I said in any way. Again, with the XY problem... If someone asks for X, but really needs Y and there is a better way to get Y than to help them with X... Of course X is better than no X and no Y. But that doesn't change the fact that Y is much, much better than X. And in the case of health care, it is not even close. Price transparency may lead to each person paying a little less, or at least being less stressed, but it still won't fix the fact that America has the most expensive system, with the worst outcomes, in the developed world. So yeah, X is better than --X, and ++X even better than X, but that doesn't change the fact that Y is still the correct solution when you focus on the problem you really want to solve rather than making the incorrect solution slightly less incorrect. --- Also, IANAE, but I do not believe that in Canada, hospitals are permitted to have a 1000x variance in pricing. I think that for those things we socialize, the government sets the price.

carapace 7y ago
I think you're right (profit motive and health care don't mix) but then how do you cut the Gordian Knot? I'm cautiously hopeful that price transparency might be a start.
- mrguyorama 7y ago
  Honestly? Stop electing people who scream that public health is a communist devil plot?
  - carapace 7y ago
    I'll see what I can do.

AtlasBarfed 7y ago

Like the education system, the health care system's retail price is basically ludicrous. This is to extract maximum situational revenue, basically get as much from the patient as they can afford. Colleges charge 100k, but will adapt spending (as little as possible) to get students to be able to pay. They even preferentially let in richer students. It's the ideal way for a business to make money if they can charge based on how much each individual can pay (and bankruptcy is someone-else's-problem in both healthcare and tuition)