Nice attack on my character. If I were a Marxist I wouldn't have the money I do.
It has nothing to do with your character and everything to do with your implicit claim that medical care is magically immune from market forces. It is not.
Meaningless statement. Australia is a big country. Many millions of people. You act like Australia is the state of Missouri.
Millions as compared to billions, and in tightly packed areas. The more relevant point is that the smaller the political unit the more open trade tends to be by necessity. The more trade, the more business, the more wealth to draw on to support such a program. The larger the political unit the more attractive a policy of autocracy and restrictive trade becomes, especially if there is a large population and a lot of natural resources to draw on.
Which means there is no point in mentioning it. So don't.
I didn't, you did, and in the context of a ridiculous false dilema argument about letting people die in the streets. As if the only options were that or socialized medicine. Because it would obviously be impossible for anyone to plan ahead for such emergency services without the good hand of papa government guiding them to do so.
Oh you mean like there only being a certain amount of physical space in an area? You know, space needed to build hospitals? yeah I'd say that's a bit of a restriction. Unless you've invented the friggin Dr. Who box or whatever it's called, we're not getting around that one.
Why is a modern hospital the only option? The world is not limited by your vision of what's possible, necessary, and/or desirable. Delis don't seem to have trouble finding space. Nor do malls, law firms, banks, etc., all of which are abundant in urban areas. Again you are simply wrong and whether you know it or not looking at the current state of affairs as the only possible option.
Last I checked you can't get mail order emergency care or order your emergency care online. When you are incapacitated you go to whatever hospital they take you; you don't have ANY choice in the matter. When the consumer doesn't have a choice there's no elasticity.
That is the way it is
now. Once more you are using the result of the current over regulated ****ed up system as an argument for more regulation and ****ed uppedness. It's more than a little nonsensical. As an analogue, auto insurance companies develop networks of mechanics/garages, towing services, and body shops that their customers can use, or which they can be referred to in an emergency when needed. I'm
absolutely sure it would be
totally impossible for health insurance companies, hospitals, doctors, surgeons, emergency care providers, etc. to work something similar out without a government mandate to do so... Yes.
Absolutely impossible. Not a chance in hell, because medical care is magically immune to the market forces that make such arrangements advantageous.
Unless of course you don't have any available real estate to build those new hospitals on...
See above. No one else who is willing to pay for real estate seems to have trouble finding any.
Artificially stiffled. Like perhaps by the laws of physics maybe?
Or perhaps by leaving the construction of new hospitals in the hands of the government, in which case politics and bureacracy determine the course of events. Or perhaps by demanding all hospitals meet certain criteria, upping the cost of entry into the market and making it harder to establish specialized care centers. Once more, banks, delis, supermarkets, law firms, travel agencies, malls, etc., and any other business willing to pay for real estate seems to be able to find it. Gee, must be a miracle or something.
Healthcare so expensive people just die instead. Yep, 18000 do that every year here in the USA.
Your response makes no sense considering the quote of mine it follows. However, once more, there is nothing inherrent in health care that means it must be expensive.
Ok so go tell them to lower their prices. See how that flies.
Find basic economics text, look up price formation. Read.
Ah so it's all regulation that's made hospitals charge so much. Please explain whcih regulation.
As an example third party payment, especially through medicare/medicaid. With regular insurance, such as homeowners, you pay a certain amount for a certain coverage. In medical insurance you pay a certain amount and the insurer pays for damn near whatever the doctor orders. As long as someone else is paying lets get all the tests possible.
There are also other laws that raise the price of insurance, such as forced coverage for certain things and disallowances of price discrimination for higher risk people. For example in Connecticut insurance companies are not allowed to charge higher premiums based on race, previous history with certain diseases like cancer, etc., all of which intefere with proper risk tiering and cause higher prices all around by forcing everyone to shoulder the cost of higher risk individuals. In many states also there is mandatory coverage for drug counseling and similar programs, whether people want it or not. This also raises the price of insurance.
But I guess that's all irrelevant because health care is magically immune to market forces...
I'd love to know. Perhaps it's the one that states that they are not allowed to refuse emergency service.
Yes, that is one such law. One of my best friends is a nurse and since they are not allowed to refuse emergency service people go to the ER to deal with ear aches and particularly nasty hang nails. In other words, and try and stay with me on this one because I know it's
soooo hard to grasp, if you price something below market or make it essentially free to all, demand goes up relative to supply, which means prices go way the **** up.
EXCELLENT. Equating TVs to life. Yeah I'm not really seeing that one. The right to live is kinda a bigger deal.
You have a right to live. You do not have a right to live on someone else's dime. And, if you understood basic economics rather than subscribing to this new age pseuod Marxist magical thinking which you apparently favor, you would realize that the marginal nature of choices applies to
all goods and services.
Price increases happened when the government took away nearly all the regulations regarding insurance companies allowing the formation of HMOs.
That would be interesting indeed if the government actually deregulated the health care market. They never did. They reregulated it, which is not the same thing and does not have the same result. HMOs are the logical result, the embodiment of the pseudo rationing predicted when the government first started to nationalize the industry. HMOs formed in the early part of last century as prepaid health plans. The HMO act of 1974 gave them legal privielege as the favored type of health plan through access to grants and easy money, and forced employers to offer such plans as an option.
By forcing the hands of employers and employees (gee, prepay a little now and almost never have to pay out of pocket again or pay out of pocket...) guess what happens? You artifically distort the market. Which all goes back to the original move toward nationaliztion in this country when just over half the medical schools were shut down after the Flexner Report was issued and the AMA given virtual control over the supply of doctors. Prices went up after that move too.
By all means explain your magical emergency system that doesn't involve red tape, treats everyone, and doesn't bankrupt everyone that enters. Please do.
The strength of the market is that I don't have to. It's called the division of labor. It's a bit ridiculous to ask someone who is arguing against central planning for a central plan. I don't know how to construct or run a deli, a bookstore, a super market, a law firm, a bank, a shopping mall, etc., either. I guess it's just magic that they came into existence without a government bureaucrat overseeing everything from start to finish.
No I'm saying hospitals should never be allowed to deny someone emergency treatment.
Then you will increase demand relative to supply and prices will go up. Live with it and stop whining or don't do it.
That's what I'm saying. By not denying anyone, that means that SOME WILL NOT BE ABLE TO PAY. End of story. Try as you might some are just flat out broke. A lot are. Tons are. Most victims or violent crime in urban areas are.
And? Where is it written you have the right to medical care? It is not a right, it is a service
someone else is free to provide voluntarily, nothing more. Neither you, nor I, nor anyone else has a right to it because that means we have a right to someone else's time and effort.
False analogy again. I'm saying hospitals should not be able to deny people emergency care no matter their financial system. Because that means a large number won't pay, it will also means that money has to come from somewhere. Without some form of regulation, it means the average Joe. Unless you want regulation saying hospitals just have to "suck it up." They are going to pass that cost on to thsoe who CAN pay. That's just how it works. I can tell you don't run a business. You're all theory and no reality.
Well, if you define reality as ignoring the cause of the current massive cost of health care then yes. In reality though what you are guilty of is temporal provincialism. As things are now, so they must be now and forever... Nothing in the past caused the high price of medical care, it's magic, and magically divorced from the laws of the market that have allowed the supply of even the most technologically advanced goods and services to proliferate like weeds and their prices to fall...
In reality the medical care industry is massively regulated, hugely inefficient, and legislatively cut off from the very market forces that would serve to lower costs and prices so the average joe
could afford it on his own.
Medicare and Medicaid are not socialized medicine.
This statement is blatantly assinine.
They are outsourced to private entities which is why they deny claims so often.
Government outsourcing is not the free market, it is just the outsourcing of a government **** up. Hiring a 'private' contractor to carry out the program doesn't make it any less socialized because it is the framework in which the operation takes place that matters. Funding is still a matter of individual compulsion and not consumer choice.
