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That chart really does tell it all. Which lines are going up? the ones the government is most involved in. Which lines are going down? the ones with the least(b

That chart really does tell it all. Which lines are going up? the ones the government is most involved in. Which lines are going down? the ones with the least(by comparison) regulated markets. I don't know why people after seeing that chart attribute it to uneven "productivity growth".

woah 6y ago
Correlation is not causation
- insert_coin 6y ago
  Sure, it doesn't imply it. It also doesn't not imply it. But, it is a hell of a lot better than something not even in the chart like the undefined and catch it all concept of 'productivity', as anyone who saw an operating room in the 70s, or an ICU and has seen one now can attest to the enormous real growth in core productivity driven by the same factor as all the other sectors of the economy: technology.
  - orwin 6y ago
    Actually, its energy usage. You can conflate that to technology but unless you find a way to have a Carnot machine more efficient, energy use is what drive growth (or used to until QE).
minikites 6y ago
Do you really think the market for television sets behaves the same as the market for healthcare and that government intervention is the reason healthcare is so expensive? How do you explain nations with more government involvement in healthcare who have lower healthcare costs?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tharne 6y ago
  That's not true at all. The U.S. government spends more per person on healthcare than many European countries and regulates more as well, and yet has significantly higher healthcare costs. There are myriad reasons for this, which I'm not going to get into here, but the point is that healthcare costs are a complex beast and simplistic arguments like "more government vs. less", don't explain much.
  - bluecalm 6y ago
    Specifically the reason services are expensive in US is regulation. Expensive requirements, lawsuit insurance, overpaid doctors whose supply is artificially limited. Universal healthcare in my country sucks. What doesn't suck is that I can go to private providers and get things like MRI/minor surgeries/physio done for like 10% of the cost I would pay in US. That is paying out of pocket without any coverage from the single payer universal insurance. The reason I have that available is that it's easier and cheaper to start providing the services here. Single payer doesn't really matter. There are countries which do great without it (Switzerland for example). If you want cheaper stuff you need to focus on getting rid of cartels and anti competitive practices. Train more doctors, some through shorter track so they can provide simple checkups/treatments. Force everyone to list prices in clear way. Change the law so you don't go bankrupt when something goes wrong and that you don't need several million investment to provide something as easy as MRI scans. There are tons of obvious things to do. Single payer will not solve those problems. Full blood panel with all hormones, cholesterol, mineral levels costs like 80$ here and I can get it done any day, any time by just walking into a lab and telling them what I want to get done. No doctor consultation, nothing. The results are available online the same day (with the exception of things like free testosterone that takes several days as they ship it to outside lab). This is done without any coverage, insurance or anything. Just paying out of pocket. Think about why it's possible in a poor Central European country and not in US. Hint: it's not what progressive politicians tell you.
- insert_coin 6y ago
  The reason is because the markets are not the same. And why are they not the same? Government(s). > How do you explain nations with more government involvement in healthcare who have lower healthcare costs? They made other tradeoffs and inverted the graph. For example cellphones are way more expensive on some countries, cars are taxed up to 100% on others.
  - minikites 6y ago
    I'd like to see evidence that cars and cell phones in these countries are similar or more expensive than the savings from healthcare. I have a sneaking suspicion that the savings from healthcare dwarfs the price increase in consumer goods.
- jstrong 6y ago
  even the US market has very extensive government intervention in it, so I don't think it's a valid comparison to say, US has free market health care and is expensive, while some other place has socialized medicine and is cheap. personally, I am not aware of any good examples of a thriving, free market health care system. it does seem to me that the health care market writ large is spectacularly dysfunctional, as are a handful of other sectors that also have significant government involvement, while many other parts of the economy seem to be miraculously efficient and competent by comparison.
  - ModernMech 6y ago
    "US has free market health care and is expensive" The US has a market for private healthcare, but healthcare will never be a free market. It's the antithesis of a free market. Intrinsic inequality of bargaining power and information asymmetry are the biggest reasons for this.
    - repsilat 6y ago
      > Intrinsic inequality of bargaining power This point is usually brought up in regards to healthcare emergencies. But emergencies only make up a small fraction of healthcare spending[1]. Maybe people have less bargaining power because of agreements with providers/insurers. That's a barrier to an effective market with price sensitivity, but it's a contingent one, not a mathematically inevitable one. For much of our healthcare spending the balance of bargaining power could look like it does for food. 1: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2013/oct/28/nick-gillespie/does-emergency-care-account-just-2-percent-all-hea/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2013/oct/28/nick-gille...
pjc50 6y ago
The lines going up are the ones with larger labour components, and the ones going down are manufactured goods which can be automated and/or produced overseas in lower wage countries. You can't import a haircut. This is known as "Baumol cost disease". The other big inflator is rent - the cost of land and buildings. At this point the Georgists would like a word about land value taxes.
- insert_coin 6y ago
  This is of course the whole chicken and egg part of the discussion. You can't import a haircut because it really is technically and practically impossible or because bureaucracy has made it impossible for outsiders to enter the haircutting business? Let me remind you all that in the US you need a license to cut hair. Let me repeat that, in the US you cannot cut hair without the government giving you permission. I think it is perfectly within our abilities to build lets say some kind of smart-helmet that cuts hair and can be imported from the same countries that build smartphones, drones, watches, shoes, etc. I'm open to other ideas.
  - ben_w 6y ago
    You cannot import a haircut. It’s a service provided to you where you physically are by people who live close by. You can technically automate hair cuts (badly, but it is technically possible, most wouldn’t want to pay for it yet). You can buy an electric hair trimmers and give yourself a standard length. But there are no robots for remote-controlled hair cutting. Until there are, you can’t import them. This is why haircuts are expensive even outside of the USA, and why they vary in rough accordance with the local cost of living.
Context_free 6y ago
> Which lines are going up? the ones the government is most involved in. Which lines are going down? the ones with the least(by comparison) regulated markets. Aha. So the two Baby Bell descendants own virtually all of the last mile land lines in the US, and who were cheaply sold by the government cell phone wavelength which they also both mostly control - this duopoly which spends an inordinant amount of money on lobbying at the state and federally for regulatory capture is part of the unregulated market. The government regulating exclusive spectrum use for this as part as that lack of regulation. Your "by comparison" and "most involved" qualifiers are doing a lot of heavy lifting. Corporate America is heavily involved in desiring bailouts, regulatory capture etc. Just witness the corporate talking heads demanding more Reddit Wall Street Bets Gamestop regulation. And these were people long, not short. The notion that "free market enterprise" wants free markets, a lack of regulatory capture etc. is a fantastic notion. And you will be hard-pressed to find Fortune 500 companies not tightly intertwined with the government, which is something they obviously desire to be by their actions.
- insert_coin 6y ago
  Straw man. I didn't say any of that. > The notion that "free market enterprise" wants free markets, a lack of regulatory capture etc. is a fantastic notion. I didn't say that. Enterprises are gonna enterprise, they will suck out to the last penny if you let them. That is why it is so important to keep the market fair, it's the only real chance at even a semblance of meritocracy, if it even exists. That is the job of government, or it should be, but as you've said the disparities are increasing because surprise! the 'people's government' sold everyone out. It is about time those clamoring for more and more government intervention realize that sad, yet true, reality.
- altarius 6y ago
  Agreed, what I see in that chart are mostly those US industries that managed to co-opt government policies for subsidies (college loans, mortgage deductions) or regulations (healthcare). Why is the opposite of "bad government" always "no government" and not sometimes just "better government"?
colonelpopcorn 6y ago
The chart also shows need vs. want. There are more opportunities to sell TVs than there is to sell health care. Nobody is putting an organ transplant on their Christmas wishlist if they don't need one. But that latest iPhone? Sure, slap that on there!

woah 6y ago

Correlation is not causation

insert_coin 6y ago
Sure, it doesn't imply it. It also doesn't not imply it. But, it is a hell of a lot better than something not even in the chart like the undefined and catch it all concept of 'productivity', as anyone who saw an operating room in the 70s, or an ICU and has seen one now can attest to the enormous real growth in core productivity driven by the same factor as all the other sectors of the economy: technology.
- orwin 6y ago
  Actually, its energy usage. You can conflate that to technology but unless you find a way to have a Carnot machine more efficient, energy use is what drive growth (or used to until QE).

minikites 6y ago

Do you really think the market for television sets behaves the same as the market for healthcare and that government intervention is the reason healthcare is so expensive? How do you explain nations with more government involvement in healthcare who have lower healthcare costs?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tharne 6y ago
That's not true at all. The U.S. government spends more per person on healthcare than many European countries and regulates more as well, and yet has significantly higher healthcare costs. There are myriad reasons for this, which I'm not going to get into here, but the point is that healthcare costs are a complex beast and simplistic arguments like "more government vs. less", don't explain much.
- bluecalm 6y ago
  Specifically the reason services are expensive in US is regulation. Expensive requirements, lawsuit insurance, overpaid doctors whose supply is artificially limited. Universal healthcare in my country sucks. What doesn't suck is that I can go to private providers and get things like MRI/minor surgeries/physio done for like 10% of the cost I would pay in US. That is paying out of pocket without any coverage from the single payer universal insurance. The reason I have that available is that it's easier and cheaper to start providing the services here. Single payer doesn't really matter. There are countries which do great without it (Switzerland for example). If you want cheaper stuff you need to focus on getting rid of cartels and anti competitive practices. Train more doctors, some through shorter track so they can provide simple checkups/treatments. Force everyone to list prices in clear way. Change the law so you don't go bankrupt when something goes wrong and that you don't need several million investment to provide something as easy as MRI scans. There are tons of obvious things to do. Single payer will not solve those problems. Full blood panel with all hormones, cholesterol, mineral levels costs like 80$ here and I can get it done any day, any time by just walking into a lab and telling them what I want to get done. No doctor consultation, nothing. The results are available online the same day (with the exception of things like free testosterone that takes several days as they ship it to outside lab). This is done without any coverage, insurance or anything. Just paying out of pocket. Think about why it's possible in a poor Central European country and not in US. Hint: it's not what progressive politicians tell you.
insert_coin 6y ago
The reason is because the markets are not the same. And why are they not the same? Government(s). > How do you explain nations with more government involvement in healthcare who have lower healthcare costs? They made other tradeoffs and inverted the graph. For example cellphones are way more expensive on some countries, cars are taxed up to 100% on others.
- minikites 6y ago
  I'd like to see evidence that cars and cell phones in these countries are similar or more expensive than the savings from healthcare. I have a sneaking suspicion that the savings from healthcare dwarfs the price increase in consumer goods.
jstrong 6y ago
even the US market has very extensive government intervention in it, so I don't think it's a valid comparison to say, US has free market health care and is expensive, while some other place has socialized medicine and is cheap. personally, I am not aware of any good examples of a thriving, free market health care system. it does seem to me that the health care market writ large is spectacularly dysfunctional, as are a handful of other sectors that also have significant government involvement, while many other parts of the economy seem to be miraculously efficient and competent by comparison.
- ModernMech 6y ago
  "US has free market health care and is expensive" The US has a market for private healthcare, but healthcare will never be a free market. It's the antithesis of a free market. Intrinsic inequality of bargaining power and information asymmetry are the biggest reasons for this.
  - repsilat 6y ago
    > Intrinsic inequality of bargaining power This point is usually brought up in regards to healthcare emergencies. But emergencies only make up a small fraction of healthcare spending[1]. Maybe people have less bargaining power because of agreements with providers/insurers. That's a barrier to an effective market with price sensitivity, but it's a contingent one, not a mathematically inevitable one. For much of our healthcare spending the balance of bargaining power could look like it does for food. 1: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2013/oct/28/nick-gillespie/does-emergency-care-account-just-2-percent-all-hea/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2013/oct/28/nick-gille...

pjc50 6y ago

The lines going up are the ones with larger labour components, and the ones going down are manufactured goods which can be automated and/or produced overseas in lower wage countries. You can't import a haircut. This is known as "Baumol cost disease". The other big inflator is rent - the cost of land and buildings. At this point the Georgists would like a word about land value taxes.

insert_coin 6y ago
This is of course the whole chicken and egg part of the discussion. You can't import a haircut because it really is technically and practically impossible or because bureaucracy has made it impossible for outsiders to enter the haircutting business? Let me remind you all that in the US you need a license to cut hair. Let me repeat that, in the US you cannot cut hair without the government giving you permission. I think it is perfectly within our abilities to build lets say some kind of smart-helmet that cuts hair and can be imported from the same countries that build smartphones, drones, watches, shoes, etc. I'm open to other ideas.
- ben_w 6y ago
  You cannot import a haircut. It’s a service provided to you where you physically are by people who live close by. You can technically automate hair cuts (badly, but it is technically possible, most wouldn’t want to pay for it yet). You can buy an electric hair trimmers and give yourself a standard length. But there are no robots for remote-controlled hair cutting. Until there are, you can’t import them. This is why haircuts are expensive even outside of the USA, and why they vary in rough accordance with the local cost of living.

Context_free 6y ago

> Which lines are going up? the ones the government is most involved in. Which lines are going down? the ones with the least(by comparison) regulated markets. Aha. So the two Baby Bell descendants own virtually all of the last mile land lines in the US, and who were cheaply sold by the government cell phone wavelength which they also both mostly control - this duopoly which spends an inordinant amount of money on lobbying at the state and federally for regulatory capture is part of the unregulated market. The government regulating exclusive spectrum use for this as part as that lack of regulation. Your "by comparison" and "most involved" qualifiers are doing a lot of heavy lifting. Corporate America is heavily involved in desiring bailouts, regulatory capture etc. Just witness the corporate talking heads demanding more Reddit Wall Street Bets Gamestop regulation. And these were people long, not short. The notion that "free market enterprise" wants free markets, a lack of regulatory capture etc. is a fantastic notion. And you will be hard-pressed to find Fortune 500 companies not tightly intertwined with the government, which is something they obviously desire to be by their actions.

insert_coin 6y ago
Straw man. I didn't say any of that. > The notion that "free market enterprise" wants free markets, a lack of regulatory capture etc. is a fantastic notion. I didn't say that. Enterprises are gonna enterprise, they will suck out to the last penny if you let them. That is why it is so important to keep the market fair, it's the only real chance at even a semblance of meritocracy, if it even exists. That is the job of government, or it should be, but as you've said the disparities are increasing because surprise! the 'people's government' sold everyone out. It is about time those clamoring for more and more government intervention realize that sad, yet true, reality.
altarius 6y ago
Agreed, what I see in that chart are mostly those US industries that managed to co-opt government policies for subsidies (college loans, mortgage deductions) or regulations (healthcare). Why is the opposite of "bad government" always "no government" and not sometimes just "better government"?

colonelpopcorn 6y ago

The chart also shows need vs. want. There are more opportunities to sell TVs than there is to sell health care. Nobody is putting an organ transplant on their Christmas wishlist if they don't need one. But that latest iPhone? Sure, slap that on there!