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I prefer insurance only for emergency, and everything else to be shopped. When you're bleeding to death, you don't care about if emergency care cost a lot of mo
by kiba 14y ago
I prefer insurance only for emergency, and everything else to be shopped. When you're bleeding to death, you don't care about if emergency care cost a lot of money, just that you get to the closest hospital possible.
We need shopping anyway, as people with insurance are quite insensitive to the cost of care. There's no need for hospitals to break someone's leg if competition can lower the price of service to a reasonable level.
- wpietri 14y agoI have never met a person who suggests comparison shopping for health care who has actually been seriously ill. If you have had a major illness requiring serious care (e.g., heart disease, cancer, organ failure, stroke), please talk about exactly how you would have comparison shopped for the best bargain in hospitals.
- wpietri 14y agoAnd just in case my implication isn't clear, I think the notion of comparison shopping for treatment is insane. My mother was seriously ill last year, and the last thing we had time to do was get a serious of estimates and do a cost-benefit analysis on treating her brain tumor. Just understanding the treatment options was plenty. And, of course, picking the right doctors, because this actually was brain surgery. Oh, and we had to deal with the a loved one having a brain tumor. Little thing, that.
- kiba 14y agoI believe surgery can be made cheaper through scaling surgery operation. This will in turn increase the reliability of surgeons as they become more experienced in surgery. In some case, cheaper actually means better surgeon. Obviously, this won't work as well for surgery procedure that are more exotic. This is already true in heart surgery: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125875892887958111.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125875892887958111.html
- wpietri 14y agoInteresting, but irrelevant. There are all sorts of good approaches to cost containment in medicine. The blog "The Incidental Economist" covers them regularly. None of them rely on seriously ill people pulling out the Sunday supplement and seeing who has the best deal this week on heart bypass surgery.
- kiba 14y agoI have never met a person who suggests comparison shopping for health care who has actually been seriously ill. I had required emergency care 3 times before the age of 21. If you have had a major illness requiring serious care (e.g., heart disease, cancer, organ failure, stroke), please talk about exactly how you would have comparison shopped for the best bargain in hospitals. If somebody isn't immediately dying and mentally unable, the relatives or caretaker can take care of comparison shopping or they can just buy the service from the nearest hospital. Whatever they choose, will determine the price of the service that they pay for. If everyone is provided insurance, we will all pay an arm and a leg and the hospital get to make extravagant profit due to price insensitivity. The healthcare system anywhere in the world can't save everybody or care for everybody. There will be some rationing of some kind. It could be long waiting line, denial of care for certain individuals, or based on ability to pay. This is the reality of all systems in the world. The only alternative is to be ruthless in improving efficiency, reliability and cost of a healthcare system so that those dilemma can't happen.
- wpietri 14y agoApparently reading comprehension is not one of your skills. Have you had a major illness requiring serious care? Apparently not. But you still answered the question. You know why that's relevant? Because you quite literally have no idea what you're talking about. Because you didn't and can't talk about how you would have fit comparison shopping in the busy schedule that goes with not dying. The notion that somebody is going to say, "Hey, I'm going to see if I can get a discount on dealing with my impending kidney failure" is so far from the reality of what's reasonable in a hospital setting that I don't know where to begin. Other than saying that I should have learned by now not to try to have rational conversations with fundamentalists, be they biblical, Freudian, Marxist, or free-market fundamentalists.
- kiba 14y agoHave you had a major illness requiring serious care? Apparently not. But you still answered the question. You know why that's relevant? Because you quite literally have no idea what you're talking about. Because you didn't and can't talk about how you would have fit comparison shopping in the busy schedule that goes with not dying. Emergency care is serious care. I was rushed to the hospital. Is that's not "serious care"? The notion that somebody is going to say, "Hey, I'm going to see if I can get a discount on dealing with my impending kidney failure" is so far from the reality of what's reasonable in a hospital setting that I don't know where to begin. Other than saying that I should have learned by now not to try to have rational conversations with fundamentalists, be they biblical, Freudian, Marxist, or free-market fundamentalists Never mind. I guess you're right. In some circumstance, when you're healthy, you could comparison shop. When you're very ill, you can't comparison shop as well, due to mental state of mind. Still, I think my economic reasoning is not entirely without merit. <strike>You obviously felt that your anecdote have more weight than my economic reasoning. Just because you don't comparison shop in your situation doesn't mean other people won't. Ever heard of medical tourism?</strike>
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]