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> This is why free markets aren't the answer to everything. Perhaps I've misunderstood you here but in my opinion the way healthcare works is sort of the oppos

> This is why free markets aren't the answer to everything. Perhaps I've misunderstood you here but in my opinion the way healthcare works is sort of the opposite of a free market and if a free marketplace for health services were allowed to exist then things like $500 bags of saline solution wouldn't exist.

thrownaway2424 13y ago
It is not possible to have a "free market" in health care because the "customers" are often on the brink of death, or not even conscious.
- tapp 13y ago
  I've heard this statement used frequently to shut down debates re using market dynamics to improve the healthcare system in this country. However, the substantial majority of healthcare services provisioned are non-emergency. It is absolutely possible for us to have a freer market in those services (Lasik procedures are just one frequently cited example) and IMO that would be a huge improvement over the current Frankenstein system we have today.
Fomite 13y ago
The counter to this argument is the following: - The U.S. is some sort of ungodly hybrid system, a muddling of free market and tightly regulated ideas, and has very bad outcomes for the amount of money we spent. - Everyone else has gone away from a market system, more toward a regulated system, and experienced better outcomes. It's possible that also walking away from the other end of the market and relying on the invisible hand to administer your IV will work, but it's not a notion supported by much data - it's a free marketeer leap of faith, and it's in an industry where many of the assumptions needed for a free market (information symmetry comes to mind immediately) don't exist.
shalmanese 13y ago
Many enterprise sales markets are as free as can be but you frequently see the exact equivalent of $500 bags of saline. The similarity in both cases is not the freedom of the market, it's that the purchaser and the consumer are not the same person.

thrownaway2424 13y ago

It is not possible to have a "free market" in health care because the "customers" are often on the brink of death, or not even conscious.

tapp 13y ago
I've heard this statement used frequently to shut down debates re using market dynamics to improve the healthcare system in this country. However, the substantial majority of healthcare services provisioned are non-emergency. It is absolutely possible for us to have a freer market in those services (Lasik procedures are just one frequently cited example) and IMO that would be a huge improvement over the current Frankenstein system we have today.

Fomite 13y ago

The counter to this argument is the following: - The U.S. is some sort of ungodly hybrid system, a muddling of free market and tightly regulated ideas, and has very bad outcomes for the amount of money we spent. - Everyone else has gone away from a market system, more toward a regulated system, and experienced better outcomes. It's possible that also walking away from the other end of the market and relying on the invisible hand to administer your IV will work, but it's not a notion supported by much data - it's a free marketeer leap of faith, and it's in an industry where many of the assumptions needed for a free market (information symmetry comes to mind immediately) don't exist.

shalmanese 13y ago

Many enterprise sales markets are as free as can be but you frequently see the exact equivalent of $500 bags of saline. The similarity in both cases is not the freedom of the market, it's that the purchaser and the consumer are not the same person.