4 ms·

It's a case of prices following the law of supply and demand for ones life/health is infinite. Healthcare doesn't really work in a capitalistic marketplace.

nojvek 2y ago
Demand isn’t quite infinite. It’s ~350 million people but supply is quite limited. Same with housing. Demand is increasing faster than supply hence price increases. Price increases make housing a great financial instrument due to ease of getting mortgage loans. Also why we need to have a sane immigration strategy. Can’t bring in too many people too fast (like Canada) Private equity is playing cards on the arbitrage that any asset that increases in demand much faster than supply, and can be loan leveraged is a great investment.
- the_real_cher 2y ago
  I mean the demand for anything is 350 million people. But most things people have a price ceiling they're willing to pay. Health care there is no price people won't pay for their lives, so the demand ceiling is essentially the entire net worth of the entire population
pdonis 2y ago
> demand for ones life/health is infinite No, it isn't. People make all kinds of tradeoffs that place a finite value on their lives. What skews the health care market is that people do not see the actual cost of what they are getting; they only see a small fraction of that cost. So their demand is way out of proportion to the actual supply of health care. Further, because they can't see the actual costs, patients have no idea whether the health care they are getting is actually worth what they cost. (The lack of transparency about the actual effectiveness of health care doesn't help either.) > Healthcare doesn't really work in a capitalistic marketplace No, health care doesn't really work in a regulated marketplace where people are not given the information they need to make accurate judgments about what health care is worth its cost.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  It's not just information either, it's cost sharing with no incentive to keep costs down. If you have to split a dinner bill with a million people no matter if or what you order, people will gravitate to the surf and turff. It's the simple answer to the prisoner's dilemma when you have a million players. PS, demand is infinite in an abstract sense but is still sensitive to price
- fzeroracer 2y ago
  You can see the actual costs of healthcare. You can go look up the costs right now and calculate it all ahead of time. I've done so before. The problem is, you cannot calculate costs for unknowns. You go to a doctor for a small thing, which blows up into a big thing. Those big things are the majority of the cost. Or you go to a hospital for a small issue, which ended up being a critical unknown. No matter how much people wax poetic about healthcare and regulations, it's ultimately a system where you cannot predict costs accurately. People want to treat it like planning a flight, when it's more like your car breaking down or your phone dying suddenly.
- the_real_cher 2y ago
  > people make all kinds of tradeoffs that place a finite value on their lives. anyone who has resources and is rational will use those resources above everything else to stay alive. it's our biological imperative. people have addictions and mental disorders but theres very few things someone rational would trade their life for. that's the Crux of your argument so I don't find the rest of your argument compelling. especially looking at data comparing healthcare cost and outcomes in first world countries. 79 Now you might be right about regulation because from what I've read most of that increase cost in comparison to other countries is from administration which implies regulation. but another solution to that is socialized healthcare.

nojvek 2y ago

Demand isn’t quite infinite. It’s ~350 million people but supply is quite limited. Same with housing. Demand is increasing faster than supply hence price increases. Price increases make housing a great financial instrument due to ease of getting mortgage loans. Also why we need to have a sane immigration strategy. Can’t bring in too many people too fast (like Canada) Private equity is playing cards on the arbitrage that any asset that increases in demand much faster than supply, and can be loan leveraged is a great investment.

the_real_cher 2y ago
I mean the demand for anything is 350 million people. But most things people have a price ceiling they're willing to pay. Health care there is no price people won't pay for their lives, so the demand ceiling is essentially the entire net worth of the entire population

pdonis 2y ago

> demand for ones life/health is infinite No, it isn't. People make all kinds of tradeoffs that place a finite value on their lives. What skews the health care market is that people do not see the actual cost of what they are getting; they only see a small fraction of that cost. So their demand is way out of proportion to the actual supply of health care. Further, because they can't see the actual costs, patients have no idea whether the health care they are getting is actually worth what they cost. (The lack of transparency about the actual effectiveness of health care doesn't help either.) > Healthcare doesn't really work in a capitalistic marketplace No, health care doesn't really work in a regulated marketplace where people are not given the information they need to make accurate judgments about what health care is worth its cost.

s1artibartfast 2y ago
It's not just information either, it's cost sharing with no incentive to keep costs down. If you have to split a dinner bill with a million people no matter if or what you order, people will gravitate to the surf and turff. It's the simple answer to the prisoner's dilemma when you have a million players. PS, demand is infinite in an abstract sense but is still sensitive to price
fzeroracer 2y ago
You can see the actual costs of healthcare. You can go look up the costs right now and calculate it all ahead of time. I've done so before. The problem is, you cannot calculate costs for unknowns. You go to a doctor for a small thing, which blows up into a big thing. Those big things are the majority of the cost. Or you go to a hospital for a small issue, which ended up being a critical unknown. No matter how much people wax poetic about healthcare and regulations, it's ultimately a system where you cannot predict costs accurately. People want to treat it like planning a flight, when it's more like your car breaking down or your phone dying suddenly.
the_real_cher 2y ago
> people make all kinds of tradeoffs that place a finite value on their lives. anyone who has resources and is rational will use those resources above everything else to stay alive. it's our biological imperative. people have addictions and mental disorders but theres very few things someone rational would trade their life for. that's the Crux of your argument so I don't find the rest of your argument compelling. especially looking at data comparing healthcare cost and outcomes in first world countries. 79 Now you might be right about regulation because from what I've read most of that increase cost in comparison to other countries is from administration which implies regulation. but another solution to that is socialized healthcare.