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OxyContin is a medical drug. I have unfortunately had to assist my mother with visits to the "pain clinic" and seen firsthand many patients with a problem with
by mcculley 2y ago
OxyContin is a medical drug. I have unfortunately had to assist my mother with visits to the "pain clinic" and seen firsthand many patients with a problem with self regulation of consumption.
Maybe I am interpreting your assertions too literally.
- scott_w 2y agoOk but I’m guessing you’re in the USA where you’d have to pay significant sums for that in some form, as long as you can convince a doctor to sign off. I’m not aware of a similar problem in England, where prescriptions are currently £9.90 per prescription. This is my point: the financial cost, as with obesity, is not regulating the behaviour.
- mcculley 2y agoAh, now I understand why you are confused. No, most people with health problems in the U.S. are paying, at most, only a copay for a visit. They are getting medical treatment at no cost to them directly. It is paid for by an insurer or the state or Federal government. This moral hazard is fundamental to our problem and why many have problems regulating their consumption.
- scott_w 2y agoExcept this simply DOESN’T HAPPEN in the most famous free healthcare system on Earth, so clearly it can’t be a moral hazard. I also know for a fact these people aren’t getting this for “free.” I just checked and copay is subject to the deductible. Also, I seriously doubt insurance companies aren’t ramping up premiums on these people once they get a chance. Are these people seriously going “well it’s only $26 a pop so I may as well.” Do you think the (apparently) low price is what’s causing this?
- mcculley 2y agoI believe that you have strong opinions of the system with which I have too much experience. Many of these people are, in the case of pain clinics, getting their pills paid for by workers’ compensation carriers. That the UK has avoided some moral hazards does mean that they cannot exist elsewhere. Maybe the UK doesn’t incentivize doctors to hand out more pills.
- scott_w 2y agoNo, I have a strong opinion that the moral hazard of affordable healthcare doesn’t exist based on the lack of evidence. Americans (and the hard right of British politics) are the only group that even consider such an argument. If there were a moral hazard to affordable healthcare, I posit that you’d see lots of it in a system where healthcare is mostly free at the point of use (prescriptions aside). The fact that obesity and opioid addiction happen in the USA at far higher rates than in the UK points to a strong indicator that this moral hazard simply does not exist. The fact is that the only examples you can give point to issues unrelated to “moral hazard.” You have failed to point to a systemic pattern of risk-taking behaviour that is higher in a system with socialised healthcare than in privatised systems to convince me otherwise. You cannot because it doesn’t happen. Human beings, on the whole, do not engage in obviously dangerous behaviour more if it’s free to get treatment because we’re simply not that stupid.
- mcculley 2y agoI would very much like to move to live amongst the people that are simply not that stupid.
- scott_w 2y agoNow I don’t know if you’re just deliberately misreading my comments. At no point do I say “people don’t engage in dangerous behaviour,” I merely point out such behaviour is UNRELATED to the cost of healthcare. You’ve yet to show me any data that shows a link between affordable healthcare and moral hazard. On the contrary, your only examples come from within a system famed for being the opposite.