4 ms·

re 2) People will reject more expensive options if and only if they have the time and energy to reach the point where they know what the price differential is.

re 2) People will reject more expensive options if and only if they have the time and energy to reach the point where they know what the price differential is. Almost no medical practices in the US will tell you what the price is until after you've had the service there, and that price might even vary across multiple trips depending on how your insurance processed the claim _that_ time. (Ask me how I know.) So you would need to schedule appointments and have the entire medical procedure done multiple times to have any price visibility, and even then, there's lots of nonsense around things like doctors operating in hospitals but billing separately, which completely obfuscates the end cost to someone. People can and will choose the cheaper option, but I personally, as someone who has limited time, cannot afford to go through totalling all the bills for having the same procedure done twice every time, with all the months of back and forth for setting up being a new patient, scheduling things, being lied to about the doctor being available for the consult, showing up and having the staff gaslighting everyone about how it's not a problem on their end, everyone angrily waiting in the waiting room clearly got their appointments wrong, even if you have the reminders written by the staff at your pre-actually-seeing-the-doctor visit in hand showing their system is wrong... It's incredibly exhausting and involved to visit a new doctor for even the most trivial things. Most people cannot afford the time commitment to do that multiple times even if the procedure is something where it's not a one-off or urgent.

roenxi 3y ago
Yeah. It is a comment talking about treating healthcare as a free market. The US doesn't treat healthcare as a free market, so none of the predictions or observations in that comment apply to the US. The US seems to have some sort of racket going on in healthcare. What I've heard about their regulation makes sense if interpreted as a fairly basic system built by lobbyists to extract money from people, using emotional blackmail to break up political opposition. Otherwise it seems a bit silly.
- p_l 3y ago
  "Healthcare can't be a free market" is an assertion rooted in sound logic going back at least to Adam Smith. Making it more transparent won't change it.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    "Emergency care can't be a free market" is a reasonable statement provided the customer is the patient and not e.g. an insurer with a contractual obligation to meet a particular emergency response time, who could contract with different emergency services providers in any given area in advance and secure lower pricing by playing two providers who could each meet their emergency response requirements against each other or threatening to enter the market themselves. "Joint replacements can't be a free market" is simply nonsense.
nradov 3y ago
Medical practices in the US are now required to give uninsured patients a good faith estimate on request. https://www.cms.gov/medical-bill-rights/help/guides/good-faith-estimate https://www.cms.gov/medical-bill-rights/help/guides/good-fai... Health plans are now required to give comparison shopping tools to their plan members. Those can be difficult to use for patients who don't understand the system, but it is at least a step in the right direction. https://www.cms.gov/healthplan-price-transparency/consumers https://www.cms.gov/healthplan-price-transparency/consumers

roenxi 3y ago

Yeah. It is a comment talking about treating healthcare as a free market. The US doesn't treat healthcare as a free market, so none of the predictions or observations in that comment apply to the US. The US seems to have some sort of racket going on in healthcare. What I've heard about their regulation makes sense if interpreted as a fairly basic system built by lobbyists to extract money from people, using emotional blackmail to break up political opposition. Otherwise it seems a bit silly.

p_l 3y ago
"Healthcare can't be a free market" is an assertion rooted in sound logic going back at least to Adam Smith. Making it more transparent won't change it.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  "Emergency care can't be a free market" is a reasonable statement provided the customer is the patient and not e.g. an insurer with a contractual obligation to meet a particular emergency response time, who could contract with different emergency services providers in any given area in advance and secure lower pricing by playing two providers who could each meet their emergency response requirements against each other or threatening to enter the market themselves. "Joint replacements can't be a free market" is simply nonsense.

nradov 3y ago

Medical practices in the US are now required to give uninsured patients a good faith estimate on request. https://www.cms.gov/medical-bill-rights/help/guides/good-faith-estimate https://www.cms.gov/medical-bill-rights/help/guides/good-fai... Health plans are now required to give comparison shopping tools to their plan members. Those can be difficult to use for patients who don't understand the system, but it is at least a step in the right direction. https://www.cms.gov/healthplan-price-transparency/consumers https://www.cms.gov/healthplan-price-transparency/consumers