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Well, I admit, it's a winding path so bear with me. In a free market, a doctor would not be able to use political connections whether they be personal or part
by talmand 13y ago
Well, I admit, it's a winding path so bear with me.
In a free market, a doctor would not be able to use political connections whether they be personal or part of a group to cover themselves. This not only includes the lawsuit angle but the ability to prevent laws that restrict his behavior and/or empower the patient, or vice-versa.
Under a free market the doctor wouldn't last very long if he was bad at his job, as he would be pushed out for someone more competent. Therefore, he makes one mistake and gets sued once. Maybe twice. Under a system that allows a bad doctor to remain for longer than should be allowed results in multiple injuries which results in multiple lawsuits.
In fact, the very article that this whole thread was started for describes that very doctor. After his first severely botched surgery, where all the doctors and hospital were sure he was incompetent, he should have been booted. Or at least placed in a position that had less responsibility, such as assisting in another surgery. But the system in place kept him working or were unable to deal with him resulting in more harm.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> Under a free market the doctor wouldn't last very long if he was bad at his job, as he would be pushed out for someone more competent. In an ideal free market (which is a Platonic form, not a real thing that can exist in the material world), a vendor who fails to provide value cannot operate because there is perfect knowledge of the utilities and costs of a decision among all market participants, and buyers won't buy from that vendor. Features of real-world markets that make them approximate ideal free markets are things like frequent repeated purchases of the same class of commodity which provides its utility fairly quickly and unambiguously, such that while perfect knowledge doesn't exist in the initial condition, very good information about expected utilities can be developed by market participants which allows behavior over time to align closely with what would be expected in an ideal market. These features that allow real markets to approximate ideal free markets are not found very strongly in medical care in general, and are particularly not present in major surgery.
- talmand 13y agoThe reason they don't exist is because people actively prevent it. Much like the original article and various examples provided throughout the thread show. People ask each other all the time about their personal experiences about doctors to attempt to avoid the bad ones, but that's as far as it seems to go in most cases.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> The reason they don't exist is because people actively prevent it. No, that's not the reason that the features I identify don't exist in the purchase of major surgery. Its inherent in the kind of commodity it is.
- talmand 13y agoThe main subject, the original article, of this thread disagrees with you.