3 ms·

It's hard to see how anyone could extol the virtues of a "free market system" where behavior like this exists. It is pervasive in American health care. Just sea

It's hard to see how anyone could extol the virtues of a "free market system" where behavior like this exists. It is pervasive in American health care. Just search for "orphan drugs" if you are insufficiently outraged. [1] [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/18/this-old-drug-was-free-now-its-109500-a-year/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/18/this-...

leetcrew 6y ago
the orphan drug issue is a result of pharmaceuticals being very much not a free market. consider how absurd it is that you can jack up the price for a product you don't even have a patent for by several thousand percent and still have it be uneconomic for anyone to undercut you. to me, this implies more of an issue with the overall regulatory environment than individual profit-seeking behavior.
BitwiseFool 6y ago
I have some Libertarian minded friends and the go-to "solution" for just about every shortcoming in the healthcare system is for some other company to come along and "compete". In principle this would work (Libertarians are all about principles, by the way). But in practical terms there's too much money to be made using these dishonorable business practices and there is no viable competition.
drawkbox 6y ago
Yeah most people when they say "free market" they want a fair market. Capitalism works but the top and bottom and excessive cases need to be contained, usually those happen when there is monopoly, oligopoly, duopolies, collusion or massive wealth advantages resulting in a fixed leveraged market that is almost mafia state like. The market is a garden, the large overgrown plants taking all resources need to be trimmed back and the seedlings need more support, this allows the garden to flourish for all when the edge cases and extremes are tuned. Right now the mafia state oligarchy markets, disaster capitalists and state backed whole industries are fixed markets to the chagrin of fair market capitalists. The game design needs to be tweaked, some overpowered ones nerfed, underpowered ones helped. We like a game that is easy to approach and difficult to master, not difficult to approach and easy to master buying out competition with all that wealth leverage. We would do better to say we want fair markets not free markets, because a fair market is more free to all participants, players want to play and can.

leetcrew 6y ago

the orphan drug issue is a result of pharmaceuticals being very much not a free market. consider how absurd it is that you can jack up the price for a product you don't even have a patent for by several thousand percent and still have it be uneconomic for anyone to undercut you. to me, this implies more of an issue with the overall regulatory environment than individual profit-seeking behavior.

BitwiseFool 6y ago

I have some Libertarian minded friends and the go-to "solution" for just about every shortcoming in the healthcare system is for some other company to come along and "compete". In principle this would work (Libertarians are all about principles, by the way). But in practical terms there's too much money to be made using these dishonorable business practices and there is no viable competition.

drawkbox 6y ago

Yeah most people when they say "free market" they want a fair market. Capitalism works but the top and bottom and excessive cases need to be contained, usually those happen when there is monopoly, oligopoly, duopolies, collusion or massive wealth advantages resulting in a fixed leveraged market that is almost mafia state like. The market is a garden, the large overgrown plants taking all resources need to be trimmed back and the seedlings need more support, this allows the garden to flourish for all when the edge cases and extremes are tuned. Right now the mafia state oligarchy markets, disaster capitalists and state backed whole industries are fixed markets to the chagrin of fair market capitalists. The game design needs to be tweaked, some overpowered ones nerfed, underpowered ones helped. We like a game that is easy to approach and difficult to master, not difficult to approach and easy to master buying out competition with all that wealth leverage. We would do better to say we want fair markets not free markets, because a fair market is more free to all participants, players want to play and can.