3 ms·
Some relevant questions are whether the demand is elastic and how difficult to compare and/or fungible the product is. Medical care is inelastic (without it you
by jtolmar 7y ago
Some relevant questions are whether the demand is elastic and how difficult to compare and/or fungible the product is. Medical care is inelastic (without it you die) and difficult to compare (you don't get to try the same surgery with two different providers). Food is inelastic (even more so), and easy to compare, but many foods are very fungible (your supermarket will let you choose red white or yellow onions, but not which farm your onions come from). Demand for clothing is more elastic (you need it but you can probably wait for a sale), and it's easy to compare the items.
- bhupy 7y agoExcellent point. Medical care can be difficult to compare, but is that necessarily true across ALL medical care? There exists a high degree of fungibility in most preventive care: routine treatments like annual physicals, bloodwork, antibiotic prescription, flu shots, diagnostic imaging, etc. The next question is: is there the same degree of fungibility for more major care, like tonsillectomies and appendectomies? Perhaps brain surgery and oncology is less fungible — but they are also perfect candidates for insurance coverage since they're catastrophic.
- cdspub 7y agoSame is true for food. I also wonder how affinity analysis can be applied to medical care. And - can the question of market vs government allocation be analyzed using "baskets"?
- jwbwater 7y agoMost healthcare is not for life threatening illness. The bigger problem in healthcare in the US is that consumers almost never know how much a service will cost beforehand.