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> This is what happens when the buyer doesn't care what the price is because its not their money and the seller doesn't publish prices to allow comparison. The

> This is what happens when the buyer doesn't care what the price is because its not their money and the seller doesn't publish prices to allow comparison. The norm in most systems (in developed states, anyway) is that the buyer doesn't care what the price is, to at least the same degree that they don't in ours. Yet they're all much cheaper than our system.

mikem170 5y ago
Most of those other systems have price controls for everything, like Medicare does in the U.S. The U.S. is different because we allow corporations to lobby/bribe/buy politicians, which most other developed countries consider to be corruption. So we have a health care system optimized for profits, not people.
- handrous 5y ago
  Bingo, see my post elsewhere in this thread :-) I'm no expert but have been reading about this for a couple decades now, and the consistent element in every non-US system in developed countries, despite a vast variety of approaches, is indeed price controls, either explicit or de facto. I'm highly skeptical of any reform attempt in the US that doesn't have that as a central element, due to, you know, gestures at the rest of the world.
derekjdanserl 5y ago
That’s right. But the employer-dependent health insurance arrangement in the U.S. was implemented as an alternative to the various political dynamics that regulate most countries’ healthcare systems and it has successfully done so. The problem, in other words, is that a truly free-market healthcare system would be politically infeasible in a major first-world nation. So instead of a public healthcare system that would provide minimal healthcare services to all citizens, they tied it to employment, effectively moving it from the consumer market to the labor market. So this arrangement, like most neoliberal policies including Obamacare, has served merely to buy more time for the ruling class. And worst of all it has worked.

mikem170 5y ago

Most of those other systems have price controls for everything, like Medicare does in the U.S. The U.S. is different because we allow corporations to lobby/bribe/buy politicians, which most other developed countries consider to be corruption. So we have a health care system optimized for profits, not people.

handrous 5y ago
Bingo, see my post elsewhere in this thread :-) I'm no expert but have been reading about this for a couple decades now, and the consistent element in every non-US system in developed countries, despite a vast variety of approaches, is indeed price controls, either explicit or de facto. I'm highly skeptical of any reform attempt in the US that doesn't have that as a central element, due to, you know, gestures at the rest of the world.

derekjdanserl 5y ago

That’s right. But the employer-dependent health insurance arrangement in the U.S. was implemented as an alternative to the various political dynamics that regulate most countries’ healthcare systems and it has successfully done so. The problem, in other words, is that a truly free-market healthcare system would be politically infeasible in a major first-world nation. So instead of a public healthcare system that would provide minimal healthcare services to all citizens, they tied it to employment, effectively moving it from the consumer market to the labor market. So this arrangement, like most neoliberal policies including Obamacare, has served merely to buy more time for the ruling class. And worst of all it has worked.