3 ms·

Why is what a good thing?

by ska 7y ago

rayhendricks 7y ago
I was referring to the non-transferability of health insurance in the USA; e.g. you get fired at Microsoft or anywhere with great healthcare and that is only extendable temporarily via COBRA. Then you either have to find another job or get insurance through one of the Obamacare exchanges. What I am arguing is that this reduces the mobility of labor. Also as someone who has switched jobs in the last year setting up new insurance/dentist/optometrist multiple times is a absolute waste of my time and would be entirely eliminated if we stopped tying insurance to the employer.
- shantly 7y ago
  Our current system puts a huge time burden on healthcare "consumers" despite being vastly more expensive than any remotely similarly-effective system. This time burden falls largely, though not entirely, on the sick and their families. It's straight-up inhumane, given it's clearly not necessary.
- ska 7y ago
  It sounds to me like you are agreeing with the post you replied to, then ... which was confusing.
bufferoverflow 7y ago
He is asking why is it good for the workers. You're basically advocating for price controls on one field. How would you like if you were only allowed to make $30/hr for writing code? We already have massive shortages of doctors (and nurses, I think). This will only make it worse.
- camclay 7y ago
  We don't have massive shortages of Doctors, we have shortages in locality. The same places where there is joblessness (think Apalachian Mining towns), you find a lack of doctors. There's no shortages of doctors, or nurses in major cities. https://www.google.com/search?q=doctor+shortages+usa+appalachian&rlz=1C1GCEB_enUS866US873&oq=doctor+shortages+usa+appalachian&aqs=chrome..69i57j33l2.8175j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=doctor+shortages+usa+appalac... provides a bunch of links if you want to dive into this topic further.
- shantly 7y ago
  AFAIK every single other OECD state has explicit or de-facto (via monopsony) price controls for much of the healthcare sector. Hell, even non-OECD free-marketer-beloved Singapore does. I would, no kidding, love to see any example of a successful, modern healthcare system that doesn't employ price controls to keep costs from getting out of hand. Allowing "successful" and "modern" to describe the system in the US, it's the only one I know of that doesn't.
  - bufferoverflow 7y ago
    You didn't answer the question though. You just went with "well, everyone else does that".
    - shantly 7y ago
      ... which means you can go look at them to see how it's working out. Again, I am legitimately interested in learning about any healthcare system in a state with an advanced economy that doesn't employ price controls in one form or another, but in the meantime, instead of spitballing about what a disaster it might be, we can just look at, AFAIK, literally any other such state to see how it works out. Dozens of examples.
- ska 7y ago
  > You're basically advocating for price controls on one field. I'm not advocating for anything; it wasn't my comment. I just couldn't be sure what the poster was referring to, as the original comment was convoluted.

Why is what a good thing?

by ska 7y ago

Why is what a good thing?

I was referring to the non-transferability of health insurance in the USA; e.g. you get fired at Microsoft or anywhere with great healthcare and that is only extendable temporarily via COBRA. Then you either have to find another job or get insurance through one of the Obamacare exchanges. What I am arguing is that this reduces the mobility of labor. Also as someone who has switched jobs in the last year setting up new insurance/dentist/optometrist multiple times is a absolute waste of my time and would be entirely eliminated if we stopped tying insurance to the employer.

shantly 7y ago
Our current system puts a huge time burden on healthcare "consumers" despite being vastly more expensive than any remotely similarly-effective system. This time burden falls largely, though not entirely, on the sick and their families. It's straight-up inhumane, given it's clearly not necessary.
ska 7y ago
It sounds to me like you are agreeing with the post you replied to, then ... which was confusing.

bufferoverflow 7y ago

He is asking why is it good for the workers. You're basically advocating for price controls on one field. How would you like if you were only allowed to make $30/hr for writing code? We already have massive shortages of doctors (and nurses, I think). This will only make it worse.

camclay 7y ago
We don't have massive shortages of Doctors, we have shortages in locality. The same places where there is joblessness (think Apalachian Mining towns), you find a lack of doctors. There's no shortages of doctors, or nurses in major cities. https://www.google.com/search?q=doctor+shortages+usa+appalachian&rlz=1C1GCEB_enUS866US873&oq=doctor+shortages+usa+appalachian&aqs=chrome..69i57j33l2.8175j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=doctor+shortages+usa+appalac... provides a bunch of links if you want to dive into this topic further.
shantly 7y ago
AFAIK every single other OECD state has explicit or de-facto (via monopsony) price controls for much of the healthcare sector. Hell, even non-OECD free-marketer-beloved Singapore does. I would, no kidding, love to see any example of a successful, modern healthcare system that doesn't employ price controls to keep costs from getting out of hand. Allowing "successful" and "modern" to describe the system in the US, it's the only one I know of that doesn't.
- bufferoverflow 7y ago
  You didn't answer the question though. You just went with "well, everyone else does that".
  - shantly 7y ago
    ... which means you can go look at them to see how it's working out. Again, I am legitimately interested in learning about any healthcare system in a state with an advanced economy that doesn't employ price controls in one form or another, but in the meantime, instead of spitballing about what a disaster it might be, we can just look at, AFAIK, literally any other such state to see how it works out. Dozens of examples.
ska 7y ago
> You're basically advocating for price controls on one field. I'm not advocating for anything; it wasn't my comment. I just couldn't be sure what the poster was referring to, as the original comment was convoluted.