Myth of health care's free market

[Luddly Neddite]

The Myth of Health Care's Free Market - Newsweek

For weeks, politicians and writers in the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal and other critical outlets have declared Obamacare a failure with plenty of victims. Those are silly assertions because the law only took effect this week, on the first day of 2014.

These critics are all outrage with no detailed alternatives, except the mantra that competition will magically bring down health-care costs. The libertarians at the Cato Institute argue "we need market competition more than ever. Not the mealymouthed substitutes bandied about by most health policy wonks. We need something that none of us has ever seen - real competition in a free health-care market."

No. We need something easier, simpler, and already proven to cut costs...

... More than four decades ago the Supreme Court defined a fair market as the "price at which the property would change hands between a willing buyer and a willing seller, neither being under any compulsion to buy or to sell and both having reasonable knowledge of relevant facts." How many of us have "reasonable knowledge" of medical procedures, costs, or even the difference between a neurologist and a nephrologist?

Is an accident victim writhing in pain, life's blood flowing out of his body, free of compulsion?...

... We don't have a free market for health-care services. If we did, we would see a narrow range of prices for the same service. After all, a Ford F-150 pickup with the same options costs about the same in Washington, West Virginia, or Wyoming. Not so hospital and medical costs, a fact brought home in the 2012 Pricing Report of the International Federation of Health Plans, a trade association for health insurance companies.

While the average U.S. hospital stay is just under $4,300 per day, one in four patients are charged $1,514 or less and one in 20 pay $12,537 or more.

The total cost for an appendectomy ranges from $8,156 for a fourth of these procedures to more than $29,426 for the most expensive 5 percent. The average cost is $13,851....

... In France the average daily cost of a hospital stay is $853; in the U.S., it's $4,287.

An MRI costs on average $335 in Britain and $363 in France, but $1,121 in the U.S.

Routine and normal childbirth costs, on average: $2,641 in Britain and $3,541 in France but in the U.S. averages $9,775. Caesarean section delivery runs $4,435 in Britain, $6,441 in France; $15,041 in the U.S.

This pattern holds for all 21 procedures examined in the report...

... Our universal single-payer health-care plan for older Americans, Medicare, has lower costs and lower overhead than the system serving those under age 65. If everyone in the U.S. was on Medicare, the savings would move the federal budget from deficit to surplus.

We're doing it wrong...

 

[boedicca]

We can always count on you to come to the wrong conclusion.

Our problems are because the free market in health care was seriously impaired decades ago - we have very few remannts left (elective surgery such as lasik which has dropped in price quite dramatically). But your solution is MORE GOVERNMENT CONTROL AND INTERFERENCE, which caused the problems in the first place.

 

[eflatminor]

You think we've had a free market in healthcare?

Oh...my...God. Are you really that fucking stupid?

We've had nothing close to a free market in healthcare or healthcare insurance for many, many decades.

Only the most ardent collectivist could look at the thousands upon thousands of laws, mandates and meddling in the healthcare markets and call that "free".

Sorry comrade...one massive fail.

 

[PredFan]

Yes, Luddley really is that stupid.

 

[Joe Steel]

We're doing it wrong...

Of course we're doing it wrong. Relying on capitalists to implement public policy always is a bad idea.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

... Our universal single-payer health-care plan for older Americans, Medicare, has lower costs and lower overhead than the system serving those under age 65. If everyone in the U.S. was on Medicare, the savings would move the federal budget from deficit to surplus.

We're doing it wrong...[/QUOTE]

I find myself wondering why anyone would keep posting an outright lie that has been debunked so often that only brain dead morons would post it, then I find that the OP is someone that makes brain dead morons look like Albert Einstein.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

We're doing it wrong...

Of course we're doing it wrong. Relying on capitalists to implement public policy always is a bad idea.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

... Our universal single-payer health-care plan for older Americans, Medicare, has lower costs and lower overhead than the system serving those under age 65. If everyone in the U.S. was on Medicare, the savings would move the federal budget from deficit to surplus.

We're doing it wrong...

I find myself wondering why anyone would keep posting an outright lie that has been debunked so often that only brain dead morons would post it, then I find that the OP is someone that makes brain dead morons look like Albert Einstein.[/QUOTE]

Posting your opinion does make it fact. Its still just an opinion.

The thread you've been studiously avoiding ...

http://www.usmessageboard.com/healthcare-insurance-govt-healthcare/333278-baby-steps.html

 

[eflatminor]

We're doing it wrong...

Of course we're doing it wrong. Relying on capitalists to implement public policy always is a bad idea.

Right...'cuz the central planners throughout history have done a better job. Oh those glory days in the USSR! Just glorious comrade, wasn't it?

 

[Norman]

If it's cheaper let people enroll in it. Why do you need to force people into it? Why not let them have a choice?

Forcing people into some program will always increase costs, because the ones running said program can ask whatever they want sort of. Plus there will be less choice, and who wants that? Individuals have different needs regarding health care.

Of course the cheap medicare is a myth. It's cheap overhead is due to the fact that they do not count things like IRS budget and like you know it's mostly old people.

 

[BobPlumb]

The solution to healthcare would be to restore the free market. LASIK eye surgery is an excellent example of how thud Fred market can work in health care.