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Healthcare is a concept that few people wish to compromise on. It's also an area that most people lack the background to make educated decisions for. For a gr

by hvb2 1y ago

Healthcare is a concept that few people wish to compromise on. It's also an area that most people lack the background to make educated decisions for. For a grocery store, you're talking about 'a commodity' with many suppliers all supplying an equivalent product. So changing grocery stores isn't a big deal. So if one grocery store charges a fortune, you just go to a different one. For healthcare, how often do you visit a hospital and when you do, how much do you care about price since you cannot tell the difference in quality beforehand

tptacek 1y ago
Price shopping for hospitals is very much a thing. Read up on surgical centers! Meanwhile: food is a much more fundamental human need than medical care is.
- hvb2 1y ago
  > Price shopping hospitals is a very much a thing In the US, sure. Where else? Because it's so expensive that literally one admission can bankrupt you Food is a more fundamental need. It's also available in many more places and easy to compare prices. Say you need a knee replaced. And one place is 1000$ less expensive, that's where you go? Or do you now read reviews on the doctor etc etc. When was the last time you read a review on a grocery store? The stakes are very different in cost and outcome
  - tptacek 1y ago
    It's ironic that you managed to pick a surgery that the US is actually capable of delivering at lower cost than Europe (generally, our procedure costs are integer multiples higher than Europe, because of the doctor cartel). Most Americans getting a knee replacement will "pay" more than Europeans pay (nominally, through their employer-provided health insurance), but price-shopping Americans can significantly outdo Europe by getting that procedure done at a surgical center.
    - hvb2 1y ago
      Sure that wasn't the point. Your point was that healthcare (for profit hospitals) and grocery stores are equivalent. You've so far argued that they're not. Unless you also go price shopping for your groceries every time. I don't know of anyone forgoing medical care they needed because of cost. People go deep in debt to pay for it. Most people go to a hospital because they want to get better not because they're looking for a bargain. And finally, the people that get their healthcare through work probably don't have time/will to get quotes because it's not like that's straightforward
      - tptacek 1y ago
        That was not in fact my point.
- cameldrv 1y ago
  Under certain circumstances you can price shop for hospitals. For certain types of procedures, especially self pay ones like elective or cosmetic ones, the market works fairly decently. There are other circumstances, that I recently dealt with in our family, where someone shows up to the ER with an emergent issue, and then, say, based on what's found in the ER, winds up in the ICU for a significant period of time. It's extremely difficult to price shop this, because you don't know what you're going to be buying until after you've already chosen the hospital. This is also why provider networks were invented, so that these prices are negotiated in advance.
  - tptacek 1y ago
    The word "elective" is doing a lot of lifting in that sentence. Elective procedures aren't like cosmetic procedures; they're not "procedures you can maybe do or maybe not do". "Elective" in medicine is a term of art for "you can schedule it in advance". A total hip replacement is elective; so is a lung resection, so are many coronary bypasses.

by hvb2 1y ago

tptacek 1y ago

Price shopping for hospitals is very much a thing. Read up on surgical centers! Meanwhile: food is a much more fundamental human need than medical care is.

hvb2 1y ago
> Price shopping hospitals is a very much a thing In the US, sure. Where else? Because it's so expensive that literally one admission can bankrupt you Food is a more fundamental need. It's also available in many more places and easy to compare prices. Say you need a knee replaced. And one place is 1000$ less expensive, that's where you go? Or do you now read reviews on the doctor etc etc. When was the last time you read a review on a grocery store? The stakes are very different in cost and outcome
- tptacek 1y ago
  It's ironic that you managed to pick a surgery that the US is actually capable of delivering at lower cost than Europe (generally, our procedure costs are integer multiples higher than Europe, because of the doctor cartel). Most Americans getting a knee replacement will "pay" more than Europeans pay (nominally, through their employer-provided health insurance), but price-shopping Americans can significantly outdo Europe by getting that procedure done at a surgical center.
  - hvb2 1y ago
    Sure that wasn't the point. Your point was that healthcare (for profit hospitals) and grocery stores are equivalent. You've so far argued that they're not. Unless you also go price shopping for your groceries every time. I don't know of anyone forgoing medical care they needed because of cost. People go deep in debt to pay for it. Most people go to a hospital because they want to get better not because they're looking for a bargain. And finally, the people that get their healthcare through work probably don't have time/will to get quotes because it's not like that's straightforward
    - tptacek 1y ago
      That was not in fact my point.
cameldrv 1y ago
Under certain circumstances you can price shop for hospitals. For certain types of procedures, especially self pay ones like elective or cosmetic ones, the market works fairly decently. There are other circumstances, that I recently dealt with in our family, where someone shows up to the ER with an emergent issue, and then, say, based on what's found in the ER, winds up in the ICU for a significant period of time. It's extremely difficult to price shop this, because you don't know what you're going to be buying until after you've already chosen the hospital. This is also why provider networks were invented, so that these prices are negotiated in advance.
- tptacek 1y ago
  The word "elective" is doing a lot of lifting in that sentence. Elective procedures aren't like cosmetic procedures; they're not "procedures you can maybe do or maybe not do". "Elective" in medicine is a term of art for "you can schedule it in advance". A total hip replacement is elective; so is a lung resection, so are many coronary bypasses.