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I 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 the
by mcculley 2y ago
I 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.
- mcculley 2y agoI never claimed that there is a link between affordable healthcare and moral hazard. I argued only with two of your assertions which I have found to be unfortunately untrue, in my experience with the U.S. healthcare industry.
- scott_w 2y ago> I was similarly convinced that moral hazard in healthcare was not a problem because consumers don't get more healthcare than they need. I know now that this is not the case. Except for… you know, right here.
- mcculley 2y agoI did not claim that the moral hazard problem is linked to affordability. You seem to want to argue with things I have not said.
- scott_w 2y agoThat’s the “moral hazard” in healthcare that’s used against affordable healthcare. It’s the only context it’s used in. Obesity and opioid addiction aren’t “moral hazards” in healthcare, they’re literally things healthcare and society need to deal with. We’re far off the topic of insurance and I don’t even understand what you took issue with apart from nitpicking a sentence at this point.