• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Stossel Solves the Health Crisis with Capitalism

fitzgibbon said:
Maximum inflow, minimum outflow. There's a sure way to make sure that the general working populace is maximally available to be contribute to the GDP. :rolleyes:



You aren't making much of an argument in favour of the U.S. system, JB. Spreading the cost of the unusual expensive patient over as wide a network of otherwise-healthy ones would seem to me to create the least overall inconvenience. If the cost to me as a generally healthy person to know 6hat nobody's being denied required health care is a few bucks a month, what sort of cheapskate do I need to be to rail against that?

Clearly, the U.S. system is less efficient overall because more effort is diverted from the provision of treatment to the creative denial of said treatment. If so much energy and effort is channelled away from overall economic productivity into maximizing the profit of an insurance company, how can you believe that this represents the best societal outcome?
Click to expand...

Hint: He's not trying to; and he doesn't...
 
I don't think jimbob is trying to make any sort of case for the US system! Note his location.

Rolfe.
 
fitzgibbon said:
jimbob said:
Going back to hte basic idea in the OP.

The free market is great at optimising efficient resources where the efficient provision of these resources is aligned with the most efficient production of profit.
Click to expand...

Maximum inflow, minimum outflow. There's a sure way to make sure that the general working populace is maximally available to be contribute to the GDP. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
My point was the highlighted caveat. For example, bulk purchasers of food find that the free market works well for them, as they have a lot of knowledge of what they are purchasing, little time constraint, and lots of producers to chose from. Almost none of this is the case in the health industry as far as individual patients are concerned.

fitzgibbon said:
jimbob said:
In health care provision, certain patients will need expensive treatment. By nature of their illness, these are also likely to be less able to work, so have fewer funds. In a free market system, the ideal situation from a provider's point of view would be for its competitors to provide coverage for such people. The worried well, on the other hand are good to provide coverage for.
Click to expand...

You aren't making much of an argument in favour of the U.S. system, JB. Spreading the cost of the unusual expensive patient over as wide a network of otherwise-healthy ones would seem to me to create the least overall inconvenience. If the cost to me as a generally healthy person to know 6hat nobody's being denied required health care is a few bucks a month, what sort of cheapskate do I need to be to rail against that?

Clearly, the U.S. system is less efficient overall because more effort is diverted from the provision of treatment to the creative denial of said treatment. If so much energy and effort is channelled away from overall economic productivity into maximizing the profit of an insurance company, how can you believe that this represents the best societal outcome?
Click to expand...

I wasn't suggesting that it was for the benefit of society. I was saying that it is in the provider's interest to not supply coverage to costly patients. Or even better (from that provider's viewpoint) if their competitors take a hit providing coverage, that will cost more than it brings in.

I don't know if you have read many of my other posts, or looked at my signature, or whether my irony detection is a bit off, because you have just inferred what I hoped my post had implied.

ETA:

This bit of Poe on another thread highlights a lot of the reasons why it isn't appropriate in this case of healthcare.

Cain said:
If we had an actual free market, then most of these problems would disappear. First of all, in a free market there are no barriers to entry, and this assumption holds up particularly well in the case of health-care where anyone can start a local business. All of this competition means lower prices for you (and lower profits for business). Second, consumers are informed (no asymmetries); they're not swayed by silly superstitions and they don't need something like ten years of training. Moreover, bad decisions are perfectly reversible and consumers have lots of time to shop around. Third, indivisible benefits and costs: not happenin' here. When other people get sick and die, it's on them. Some people -- yes, I'm talking about communists -- like those two old white guys in the video -- will complain about how much is lost in "worker productivity" on account of days missed due to tooth aches and chest pains. Well, boohoo. Fourth: the children. It's actually better if fewer kids see doctors because it toughens them up. It's like my doctor says, "what doesn't kill you can only make you stronger." This may sound counter-intuitive to you. If it does sound counter-intuitive, then you're stupid, and you need to get your "duh-face" checked out... if you can. Fif: no government bureaucrats. Instead of decisions made by some poindexter in Washington who thinks he knows more than your doctor, under a free market they'll be made by some business major in Connecticut who doesn't care if he knows better than your doctor.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
jimbob said:
I don't know if you have read many of my other posts, or looked at my signature, or whether my irony detection is a bit off, because you have just inferred what I hoped my post had implied.
Click to expand...

My bad across the board, JB. As I stated in my most recent post, there are far too many who argue the point without their tongue in cheek. I assumed you to be one of their number

Fitz
 
fitzgibbon said:
My bad across the board, JB. As I stated in my most recent post, there are far too many who argue the point without their tongue in cheek. I assumed you to be one of their number

Fitz
Click to expand...

I didn't even have my tongue in my cheek, I just was just pointing out that free markets are good at optimising supply in certain situations, but only where this coincides with individual players optimising profits, which is what they actually do.

I think there is often an unstated assumption that free markets are always good.
 
Oh the sheep are bleating that over here (Ontario) something fierce. It's as if our grandparents and previous generations established what we have for no particularly good reason whatsoever.

Simplistic mindsets and slogans seem oh-so-desirable.
 
Rolfe said:
Apparently they're not supposed to do that!
Click to expand...

No, they're not, but it's pretty much universal. I take 75mg of aspirin a day, and I'm supposed to pay a prescription charge of £7.20 for 30 tablets to cover a month's use, but neither my GP nor my pharmacist would expect me to do anything other than ignore the prescription and pay a couple of quid for a hundred. As long as they can't be proven to have advised me to do that, there's no problem, because I'm allowed to make that choice for myself.

Dave
 
My doc usually knows what drugs are cheaper off prescription. For example when I first became anaemic, the doc asked if I paid for prescriptions and then said he wouldn't bother prescribing ferrous sulphate because they were so cheap to buy.
 
jimbob said:
I didn't even have my tongue in my cheek, I just was just pointing out that free markets are good at optimising supply in certain situations, but only where this coincides with individual players optimising profits, which is what they actually do.

I think there is often an unstated assumption that free markets are always good.
Click to expand...

For some it seems to be dogma (as binding as any holy text) that the free market is always best.
 
Rolfe said:
Apparently they're not supposed to do that!

Here, the prescription tax is only £3, so it doesn't happen so often anyway.

Rolfe.
Click to expand...

Are they not? My chemist always does, she even fills in a NHS receipt and gives you the form to apply for a month pre-pay certificate if that will work out cheaper (you can backdate a pre-payment certificate).
 
Darat said:
Are they not? My chemist always does, she even fills in a NHS receipt and gives you the form to apply for a month pre-pay certificate if that will work out cheaper (you can backdate a pre-payment certificate).
Click to expand...

I live in wales. Free prescriptions!

Mwa ha ha
 
fitzgibbon said:
Oh the sheep are bleating that over here (Ontario) something fierce. It's as if our grandparents and previous generations established what we have for no particularly good reason whatsoever.

Simplistic mindsets and slogans seem oh-so-desirable.
Click to expand...

You might find this of use/interest:

blutoski said:
CMAJ had an [editorial with citations] and in 2002 a peer-reviewed research [article] showing profit motive significantly deducts from quality of care in healthcare, rather than enhancing it.

Canada and the US had identical systems until the end of a transition over 1969-1972, and in the time since then, the US has fallen drastically behind in outcomes and is now more than double the cost. This value gap has grown especially fast since 2000.

IIRC, HMOs' costs outside actual care delivery - eg: accounting, marketing/advertising, lobbying, lawsuits, claim screening, collections - has inflated to about 30% of costs, compared to between 1 and 2% in Canada, depending on province.

The efficiency of US healthcare delivery is considered to be less than half of Canada's, even though Medicare is almost as efficient. This means that outside of Medicare (which has a 2% overhead) - so that means HMOs and private hospitals - is less than half as efficient. Maybe about 35% as efficient, based on my back-of-the-envelope estimate.
Click to expand...

and from that article that Blutoski referenced:

In 1972 the Yukon Territory became the last jurisdiction in Canada to adopt the Medical Care Act, which set up a system to provide hospital and physician care to all Canadians.1 Before then, the Canadian and US health care systems were similar. Both were partly public, partly private, partly for profit and partly nonprofit. Both also left a great many citizens uninsured. The costs were also about the same — a little over $300 per person in 1970 — as were outcomes. At that time, life expectancy was about a year longer in the United States.2

But with the implementation of Canadian medicare, the 2 systems rapidly began to diverge in all respects. The US system became more and more costly, leaving increasing numbers of Americans — now about 46 million people — uninsured. In 2005, expenditures were twice as high in the US as in Canada — US$6697 per person v. US$3326 in Canada.3 And although Canada insures all its population for necessary doctor and hospital care, the US leaves 15% without any insurance whatsoever.4 Those who are insured often need to pay a substantial fraction of the bill out-of-pocket, and some necessary services may not be covered. In a recent survey, 37% of Americans reported that they went without needed care because of cost, compared with 12% of Canadians.3

Outcomes also now favour Canada. Instead of living a year longer, the life expectancy of Americans is now 2.5 years shorter than that of Canadians.2 Infant mortality rates are higher in the US, as is preventable mortality (death before the age of 75 years from diseases that are amenable to treatment).5,6 Furthermore, contrary to popular belief, people in the US do not receive more health care services. They visit their doctors much less often and spend less time in hospital than Canadians do (Table 1). Per population, there are also fewer nurses and hospital beds in the US, although there are slightly more doctors and many more magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) units.5,7
Click to expand...
 
All the news lately keeps reminding me of this thread.

I can't believe the POTUS and his crew managed to botch this one up! Some peeps in the media say that more people will be uninsured if the IndMandate is struck down, so that sucks. NPR was saying that its ironic that NOT making it a single payer system may ultimately cost the WH the game.
 
I was interested in seeing if "obamacare" would actually lower our medical costs. I hope this doesnt bog us down and prevent us from doing SOMETHING about the current system. One of the points made in this thread that I agreed with was that the current system is unsustainable.

Maybe our new pres Romney will fix it ;)
 
You're claiming POTUS messed up? At the same time Scalia made the incredibly obviously partison bias revealing cornhusker gaff? Right.

Via Lucy McCalmont, Justice Antonin Scalia makes reference to the back-room deal cut during the health care debate to get Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) on board with the Affordable Care Act:

JUSTICE SCALIA: All right. The consequence of your proposition, would Congress have enacted it without this provision, okay that's the consequence.

That would mean that if we struck down nothing in this legislation but the -- what you call the corn husker kickback, okay, we find that to violate the constitutional proscription of venality, okay?
Click to expand...
There's one big problem with this comment. The cornhusker kickback was tossed out before the act was passed. Scalia is griping about a Fox News falsehood, not a real part of the Affordable Care Act.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom