5 ms·

I don't want a free market in my health care. I am not competent enough to judge if the pills I purchase actually contain penicillin and only the inert ingredi

by dalke 12y ago

I don't want a free market in my health care. I am not competent enough to judge if the pills I purchase actually contain penicillin and only the inert ingredients listed on the label. We know from the less regulated dietary supplement industry that many manufacturers lie about the contents. I have no reason to believe that the pharmacological drug industry is fundamentally more honest. There used to be a free market for health care. The FDA started as a political response to the adulteration and misbranding of food and drugs in that market. The early 1900 saw the rise of popular patent medicines containing radium, with so-called "radioactive quackery." A true free market would have no restrictions on Doramad Radioactive Toothpaste, on the sale of snake oil made of petroleum, or of Bonnore's Electro Magnetic Bathing Fluid as a cure for cholera. The free market of that era produced Elixir sulfanilamide, which killed more than 100 people. The owner of the company justified it because they were "supplying a legitimate professional demand." A free market needs no more justification than that. Anything else is politics, yes? I don't want to return to that sort of free market. What is your most convincing evidence or argument that your proposed free market will lead to an overall improvement in health consequences? Especially knowing the history of bad actors in the health care era. You commented that "people also need food and groceries to survive, but we haven't had to nationalize a grocery chain heretofore." You omitted that we have nationalized oversight of the food production system supplying the grocery chains. Again, the FDA started because the free market system of the late 1800s couldn't handle the food safety concerns. People did die because of the adulterated food they ate. They still do, as you know from various E. coli outbreaks, or the 2008 Chinese milk scandal with an estimated 300,000 victims. Your argument regarding grocery chains therefore at best means that governments shouldn't own hospitals, not that the state and federal governments should get rid of the 'committees or small groups' which develop the regulations for the hospitals. All of the examples you gave appear to assume that only the current actors - licensed doctors, regulated medicines, hospitals with government inspections - will be part of the free market system. However, an apolitical free market system must allow anyone to claim to be a doctor, anyone to claim to produce a medicine, and any barbershop, plumber, or auto shop to provide hospital services. How does an apolitical free market prevent these known historical problems, including deaths, from becoming more common again? Why didn't the free market of the late 1800s come up with a free market solution?

rokhayakebe 12y ago
A free market does not mean impunity. You are a free to purchase a gun, but you cannot kill without consequences.
- dalke 12y ago
  How does that answer or even address any of my questions?
  - rokhayakebe 12y ago
    I was addressing your definition of true free market in which you make it sound as if in a true free market anything would go down. Free market still has provisions to protect consumers. The market you describe is not a free but anarchic.
    - dalke 12y ago
      The context is "Politics is very much at play here, as it is in any system where the prices are determined by committees or small groups instead of the free market." My point is that politics is always at play. The only way to remove politics is to have an anarchic free market. It's 'committees or small groups' which made it illegal to buy radium toothpaste. It's 'committees or small groups' which made it illegal to put drugs on the market without testing. It's 'committees or small groups' which put into place federal meat inspections. Could you tell me how a free market has provisions which are more effective in terms of health outcomes, than, say, the Nordic or Japanese models? And why it was that those provisions weren't effective in the free market of the late 1800s? Since my reading of history is that the failure of free market to provide protections is what lead to the protectionist system we have today.
      - cookiecaper 12y ago
        >It's 'committees or small groups' which made it illegal to buy radium toothpaste. It's 'committees or small groups' which made it illegal to put drugs on the market without testing. It's 'committees or small groups' which put into place federal meat inspections. You're missing the operative element of my statement, which was "any system where prices are determined". It refers to the specific corruptibility of artifical governmental price fixing and its devastating effects on a free market. It is true that there will always be some element of politics affecting the marketplace, unless there is no government in place. It's OK to have a government that is interested in neutrality and takes all reasonable precautions to ensure things remain free and fair for both the supply and demand sides of the marketplace. Yes, small committees will have some decisions to make, and yes, they would also be subject to possible corruption or bribery, but as long as the government stays roughly within its provisioned and proper sphere (and it's our job to ensure they do so), it shouldn't have such painful direct ramifications. I was going to reply with the same thing rokhayakebe did. Regulation and government still exist in a free market. If the vendor intentionally misrepresents the contents of his product, he has committed fraud and should be held criminally liable. There's nothing fundamentally incompatible about a standards and testing body and the free market. Free markets have rules to keep the playing field even and fair, and to prevent the balance of power from tipping too far in any one direction. A market is not free if it is impossible to enter due to monopolistic forces, and a market is not free if the consumers are mislead or otherwise deprived of the information needed to make an informed purchasing decision. Free markets are not anarchy.

by dalke 12y ago

rokhayakebe 12y ago

A free market does not mean impunity. You are a free to purchase a gun, but you cannot kill without consequences.

dalke 12y ago
How does that answer or even address any of my questions?
- rokhayakebe 12y ago
  I was addressing your definition of true free market in which you make it sound as if in a true free market anything would go down. Free market still has provisions to protect consumers. The market you describe is not a free but anarchic.
  - dalke 12y ago
    The context is "Politics is very much at play here, as it is in any system where the prices are determined by committees or small groups instead of the free market." My point is that politics is always at play. The only way to remove politics is to have an anarchic free market. It's 'committees or small groups' which made it illegal to buy radium toothpaste. It's 'committees or small groups' which made it illegal to put drugs on the market without testing. It's 'committees or small groups' which put into place federal meat inspections. Could you tell me how a free market has provisions which are more effective in terms of health outcomes, than, say, the Nordic or Japanese models? And why it was that those provisions weren't effective in the free market of the late 1800s? Since my reading of history is that the failure of free market to provide protections is what lead to the protectionist system we have today.
    - cookiecaper 12y ago
      >It's 'committees or small groups' which made it illegal to buy radium toothpaste. It's 'committees or small groups' which made it illegal to put drugs on the market without testing. It's 'committees or small groups' which put into place federal meat inspections. You're missing the operative element of my statement, which was "any system where prices are determined". It refers to the specific corruptibility of artifical governmental price fixing and its devastating effects on a free market. It is true that there will always be some element of politics affecting the marketplace, unless there is no government in place. It's OK to have a government that is interested in neutrality and takes all reasonable precautions to ensure things remain free and fair for both the supply and demand sides of the marketplace. Yes, small committees will have some decisions to make, and yes, they would also be subject to possible corruption or bribery, but as long as the government stays roughly within its provisioned and proper sphere (and it's our job to ensure they do so), it shouldn't have such painful direct ramifications. I was going to reply with the same thing rokhayakebe did. Regulation and government still exist in a free market. If the vendor intentionally misrepresents the contents of his product, he has committed fraud and should be held criminally liable. There's nothing fundamentally incompatible about a standards and testing body and the free market. Free markets have rules to keep the playing field even and fair, and to prevent the balance of power from tipping too far in any one direction. A market is not free if it is impossible to enter due to monopolistic forces, and a market is not free if the consumers are mislead or otherwise deprived of the information needed to make an informed purchasing decision. Free markets are not anarchy.