What Would A Free Market For Health Care Look Like?

[longknife]

A very good question. And the following seems to make a whole lot of sense:

Why is it that trial lawyer ads are everywhere, while the doctor ads are nowhere to be found? The short answer is: we have a free market in the resolution of tort claims, but we have completely suppressed the market for medical care.

More @ What Would A Free Market For Health Care Look Like?

 

[ScienceRocks]

19th century healthcare
-Thousands of different standards made up on the fly at every private medical center.
-little or no consumer protection...You pay the price and you better like it....Hell, the needles, knifes and shit could be filled with crap and that would be ok.
-Price jacking would be even worse.
-People would be allowed to die at home if they couldn't pay up front hundreds of thousands of dollars.

You libertarians must all have millions in the bank as you feel pretty sure you can get into the rich mans hospitals that will have the better standards and the consumer base will have the monetary power to sue for better...For us poor fucks...Well, it won't be so nice.

 

[ScienceRocks]

A few of the good things about government regulated healthcare and private sector provided that we enjoy now is.
1. Attempt at One standard
2. More rights for the consumer

That one standard is one that is expected to be high rather you're poor or rich....

 

[cnm]

What Would A Free Market For Health Care Look Like?

 

[Greenbeard]

Markets are a good thing. But Goodman's conception of them is idiotic. Of course cancer hospitals want cancer patients--those patients are expensive precisely because "expensive" in this context means paying the hospitals treating them lots of money. The question is where is that money coming from? His suggestion that a "free market" as he understands it would produce a bunch of "cancer-patient only" insurance plans might be the stupidest thing I've ever read.

 

[usmbguest5318]

the following seems to make a whole lot of sense:

Why is it that trial lawyer ads are everywhere, while the doctor ads are nowhere to be found? The short answer is: we have a free market in the resolution of tort claims, but we have completely suppressed the market for medical care.

A free market has the characteristic of there being readily available perfect information about the goods and services offered, as well as about the relevant traits and performance records of those who provide them. No such things exists for both legal and medical services. On the contrary, there are and have been multiple efforts to deny access to performance records of medical professionals' performance records. One might be able to cull the performance records for specific attorneys or firms, but it's not an easy piece of information to obtain.

Then there's the cost and payment aspect. For most people, and in most instances, the actual (not subsidized) cost of medical care is irrelevant to consumers of that care because for most people that cost is merely the amount of their co-pay or their deductible, not the actual sum being charged for the goods and services they obtain. The same is not so regarding legal services.

 

[longknife]

Go to one of your doctors and ask what the cost of your visit will be if you pay CASH!

 

[Syriusly]

A very good question. And the following seems to make a whole lot of sense:

Why is it that trial lawyer ads are everywhere, while the doctor ads are nowhere to be found? The short answer is: we have a free market in the resolution of tort claims, but we have completely suppressed the market for medical care.

More @ What Would A Free Market For Health Care Look Like?

The issue I have with this article is that it conflates health care with health insurance.

While they are related, they are distinctly different.

 

[debbiedowner]

A very good question. And the following seems to make a whole lot of sense:

Why is it that trial lawyer ads are everywhere, while the doctor ads are nowhere to be found? The short answer is: we have a free market in the resolution of tort claims, but we have completely suppressed the market for medical care.

More @ What Would A Free Market For Health Care Look Like?

I see doctor and cancer hospital ads on TV about 10 times a night in my area. If you are Army retired you should be all locked up on Tricare. So quite worrying about it.

 

[dblack]

the following seems to make a whole lot of sense:

Why is it that trial lawyer ads are everywhere, while the doctor ads are nowhere to be found? The short answer is: we have a free market in the resolution of tort claims, but we have completely suppressed the market for medical care.

A free market has the characteristic of there being readily available perfect information about the goods and services offered, as well as about the relevant traits and performance records of those who provide them.

No, you've misread. Perfect information is required for perfect competition. Both are academic abstractions, and not requirements for a free market. The only requirement for a free market is freedom.

Then there's the cost and payment aspect. For most people, and in most instances, the actual (not subsidized) cost of medical care is irrelevant to consumers of that care because for most people that cost is merely the amount of their co-pay or their deductible, not the actual sum being charged for the goods and services they obtain.

Yep. That's the main problem. We're over insured. We need less insurance, not more, which is why it's so frustrating to see health care reform co-opted by the insurance lobby.

 

[usmbguest5318]

the following seems to make a whole lot of sense:

Why is it that trial lawyer ads are everywhere, while the doctor ads are nowhere to be found? The short answer is: we have a free market in the resolution of tort claims, but we have completely suppressed the market for medical care.

A free market has the characteristic of there being readily available perfect information about the goods and services offered, as well as about the relevant traits and performance records of those who provide them.

No, you've misread. Perfect information is required for perfect competition. Both are academic abstractions, and not requirements for a free market. The only requirement for a free market is freedom.

Then there's the cost and payment aspect. For most people, and in most instances, the actual (not subsidized) cost of medical care is irrelevant to consumers of that care because for most people that cost is merely the amount of their co-pay or their deductible, not the actual sum being charged for the goods and services they obtain.

Yep. That's the main problem. We're over insured. We need less insurance, not more, which is why it's so frustrating to see health care reform co-opted by the insurance lobby.

No, you've misread. Perfect information is required for perfect competition.

I can assure you it is not I who's misread. Perfect information is not required for any form of competition. It is a characteristic of a free market, thus it stands to reason that the less perfect the information in the the marketplace, the less freely undertaken the exchanges in that market; thus the less free the market in question. The notion of a "free market" is in itself a construct, that is, it's a theoretical/academically conceived abstraction.

The point for my mentioning information at all was in response to the comment about the presence of ads for legal services as contrasted with, in the other member's POV, the absence of ads for medical services. Those ads serve, however meagerly, to make the quality of information in the market for legal services less imperfect.

It's also worth noting that the member's claim that there are no ads for medical services is inaccurate. Almost every time I watch television I see an ad for a host of medical services: plastic surgery, dental reconstruction, cancer treatment, substance abuse rehabilitation, and promoting the superiority or quality of specific hospitals and the services they offer, to name a few.

What have tortious representation and those medical services in common? They are elective. One does not see attorneys advertise for representation for murder, robbery, and other "urgently" needed advocacy, and neither does one see doctors advertising their ability to fix broken limbs, for instance. Why, because people cannot plan for emergent care needs and people who premeditate criminal activity are not likely to shop around for lawyers in advance of committing the act.

 

[Political Junky]

Free market health care is what we have now.

 

[dblack]

Free market health care is what we have now.

is that sarcasm?

 

[IResist]

Free market healthcare means a drop in coverage for those with preexisting conditions and people having to sell off their homes to pay medical bills.

 

[dblack]

Free market healthcare means a drop in coverage for those with preexisting conditions and people having to sell off their homes to pay medical bills.

Free market health care means people are free to decide for themselves how to manage their health care.

 

[IResist]

Free market healthcare means a drop in coverage for those with preexisting conditions and people having to sell off their homes to pay medical bills.

Free market health care means people are free to decide for themselves how to manage their health care.

Free market healthcare means people often can't use it if they get sick and that insurance companies are an enemy of America.

 

[dblack]

Free market healthcare means a drop in coverage for those with preexisting conditions and people having to sell off their homes to pay medical bills.

Free market health care means people are free to decide for themselves how to manage their health care.

Free market healthcare means people often can't use it if they get sick and that insurance companies are an enemy of America.

???

 

[IResist]

Free market healthcare means a drop in coverage for those with preexisting conditions and people having to sell off their homes to pay medical bills.

Free market health care means people are free to decide for themselves how to manage their health care.

Free market healthcare means people often can't use it if they get sick and that insurance companies are an enemy of America.

???

That's the reality of how it was prior to Obamacare. Free market healthcare is a failure.

 

[dblack]

Free market healthcare means a drop in coverage for those with preexisting conditions and people having to sell off their homes to pay medical bills.

Free market health care means people are free to decide for themselves how to manage their health care.

Free market healthcare means people often can't use it if they get sick and that insurance companies are an enemy of America.

???

That's the reality of how it was prior to Obamacare. Free market healthcare is a failure.

Not really. We've been interfering in the health care market for the better part of a century. That's why it's so fucked up. But you wanna do more of the same. Go team!

 

[Marion Morrison]

Free market health care is what we have now.

Not where health insurance is concerned. In that respect it's a crony capitalist market where big insurers lobby the government and win every time.

That's why the costs are so high.

Things now cost 5x or more what they did 15 years ago.