4 ms·
ah yes, a more profit driven healthcare sector, exactly what this country needs
by markovbot 4y ago
ah yes, a more profit driven healthcare sector, exactly what this country needs
- whimsicalism 4y agoShielding people from the actual prices does raise the actual prices typically.
- Retric 4y agoYet somehow market driven healthcare is almost universally more expensive, it’s like there are some monopolistic effects involved. For example several attempts to privatize the VA failed because of the vast increase in costs.
- SoftTalker 4y agoYes, when one mega-organization owns most or all of the health care providers in an area (which is very often the case) it's a monopoly and there is no market competition. Where I live for example, from a cost perspective I can't really shop around because there are no individual practices anymore. They (and the clincs and the hospitals) are all owned by the same vast medical congolmerate. It's completely anticompetitive, yet the FTC has not shown any concern AFAIK.
- dado3212 4y agoThe two driving forces for higher costs are subsidization of demand (gov't assistance + insurance, all of which have some pass-through effect on raising the cost of services), and artificial restriction of supply (it's hard to create a hospital/vet service/hire non-US doctors). Most market-driven healthcare approaches have been handicapped by one (or usually both) of those factors still being in play.
- linuxftw 4y agoI have experience with the VA system. It's an absolute sham. Privatizing it would absolutely increase costs, because then people would actually been seen, let alone treated, for their conditions.
- arrosenberg 4y agoOP isn't exactly wrong. Much of the regulation in housing and healthcare serves to benefit and entrench the incumbents into a non-market situation where the distributors control pricing power.
- Xeoncross 4y agoHealthcare was more affordable back when individuals payed for it. The problem was that some could not, so we introduced insurance. At this point no one can afford it anymore without insurance. So our fix for one problem created a new problem.
- markovbot 4y agoif only there was some kind of other option used by all developed countries except the US... too bad there isn't, i guess i'll just die when i cant afford healthcare
- Xeoncross 4y agoWhat is the other option? Either insurance by private or government bodies or cash is all I've ever seen. Government and private insurance raises prices. Cash excludes poor people.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- larkost 4y agoThe other option is to have the government have a larger control, either by government run insurance, or by government run healthcare. There are numerous examples of either in the world that are both more effective by healthcare metrics and lower price than the current U.S. system. To be brutal about this: we in the U.S. demonstrably pay more per person that the rest of the "developed" world, and we get worse outcomes for it, and that is not even counting that we exclude a good portion of our population (which other countries do not). The only place the U.S. excels is at the very top of healthcare, the part that 1% of our population will ever see. We pay the top doctors the top dollar, so they come here, where they charge uber-top-dollar. At one point a lot of this was going to fund new drugs and clinical methods, which quickly filtered down to help everyone. But at this point those filter-downs are few and far between, and it is simply going to those who have the most money, or are the most visible.