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Here’s another way of looking at it: if you need to use this obscure medicine rather than the alternatives because your condition is comparatively rarer, is it

Here’s another way of looking at it: if you need to use this obscure medicine rather than the alternatives because your condition is comparatively rarer, is it just that you should have to pay through the nose for it? Take it to the extreme: you have a very, very rare life-threatening illness. Since only 20 or so people a year are diagnosed with this, the drugs to treat it would have to cost 1.5MM just to be decently profitable. Is that a just healthcare system? A kind of inverted lottery in which the “luckier” you are the more likely to go bankrupt. One might reasonably conclude that trying to run the entirety of the healthcare system as a capitalist enterprise is perverse and trades the misery of the many for the profit of a few. In such cases, we should rightly consider all possible alternatives.

mchusma 5y ago
1 main point to this: true "insurance" could reasonably cover edge cases, including frankly some insurance covered by the state. The US "insurance" market is not really that, it's a price negotiator/health care provider/strange thing that honestly doesn't resemble any other "insurance" product. Even though we use some terms that resemble capitalism, health care is in no way a capitalist market. It's a different beast.
s1artibartfast 5y ago
This isn't a hypothetical. There are numerous rare diseases which cost several million per year. Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a prime example. Costs are typically socialized by the federal government.
bushbaba 5y ago
This is what health “insurance” is supposed to cover. Where people pay a monthly premium to cover the small chance of a horrible disease. Instead people view health “insurance” as a healthcare plan. Which is not how the us system was designed. For those with health insurance the idea would be it cover the 10k+ per pill cost for your rare disorder.
ChrisLomont 5y ago
>Since only 20 or so people a year are diagnosed with this, the drugs to treat it would have to cost 1.5MM just to be decently profitable... Is that a just healthcare system? If it cost 1 trillion to add a year to the life of just one person, should society pay it, even if that trillion is then not able to be used for lots of other societal needs? Arguing for policy while ignoring opportunity costs leads to more human suffering than would otherwise result.

mchusma 5y ago

1 main point to this: true "insurance" could reasonably cover edge cases, including frankly some insurance covered by the state. The US "insurance" market is not really that, it's a price negotiator/health care provider/strange thing that honestly doesn't resemble any other "insurance" product. Even though we use some terms that resemble capitalism, health care is in no way a capitalist market. It's a different beast.

s1artibartfast 5y ago

This isn't a hypothetical. There are numerous rare diseases which cost several million per year. Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a prime example. Costs are typically socialized by the federal government.

bushbaba 5y ago

This is what health “insurance” is supposed to cover. Where people pay a monthly premium to cover the small chance of a horrible disease. Instead people view health “insurance” as a healthcare plan. Which is not how the us system was designed. For those with health insurance the idea would be it cover the 10k+ per pill cost for your rare disorder.

ChrisLomont 5y ago

>Since only 20 or so people a year are diagnosed with this, the drugs to treat it would have to cost 1.5MM just to be decently profitable... Is that a just healthcare system? If it cost 1 trillion to add a year to the life of just one person, should society pay it, even if that trillion is then not able to be used for lots of other societal needs? Arguing for policy while ignoring opportunity costs leads to more human suffering than would otherwise result.