CitizenBBN
04-20-2016, 06:07 PM
I've argued for at least 20 years that the fundamental problem with health care is quite simple:
Government has slowly stripped away any vestige of a free market and made it a socialist cabal, and it has been for decades.
I won't go through my argument here, it takes a bit, but suffice to say the conclusion, which most people already know and is readily provable, is that in health care we have a "market" where consumers base decisions on neither quality nor price, and where suppliers don't even answer to the consumers but rather to government and quasi-government entities (insurance companies). You show me a market where buyers don't care about price and quality and where suppliers dont' really answer to those consumers for it and I'll show you one messed up market full of skyrocketeing prices and inefficiency. In short, I'll show you a socialist bureaucracy.
Well, John Stossel lays all that out in first person with great eloquence in this piece:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/04/20/stossel-have-lung-cancer-my-medical-care-is-excellent-but-customer-service-stinks.html?intcmp=hpbt4
the answer? It's harsh, no one wants to hear it, but the only way is to get price and quality decisions a) back in the hands of consumers, and b) have consumers actually care about the price.
I just recently had a kidney stone. I've had one before, I had no idea what it was the first time, but this time I knew what was happening. last time they made me wait in pain for about 2 hours, then finally got some morpheine (you'd think they were handing out pure poison), then after a $4,000 bill later they told me to go home, take pain meds and give it a day or two to pass and come back if it didn't.
This time I went just to get pain meds, was told it was a 4 hour wait (after being treated like a drug addict wandering in despite being well presented and having my insurance card etc.), i went home and self medicated what pain meds I could get, and it passed the next day.
if I had to pay that $4K bill direct the following would have happened in short order: a) that bill would be way less b/c if they billed like that they'd have no business, and b) I'd have just self-medicated for a day or two and see how it went.
No, that's not a world of free endless MRIs for every belly ache, and yes some who maybe could have been helped may go untreated longer, but in a world without unlimited resources that's the way things work, and for every one of those we will see others who ARE helped b/c they have better access to care b/c costs are lower and providers are efficient and every American has more money b/c we aren't wasting trillions on a socialist mess through our private spending plus massive federal and state budgets.
In the end health care would be BETTER on average for people. Care will in the end be rationed, ALL things even in socialist and communist countries are rationed, the only question is if we will do it in the most efficient manner possible so we get the most consumer benefit possible, or if we will do it the socialist way so we all feel more equal but are also all worse off.
Government has slowly stripped away any vestige of a free market and made it a socialist cabal, and it has been for decades.
I won't go through my argument here, it takes a bit, but suffice to say the conclusion, which most people already know and is readily provable, is that in health care we have a "market" where consumers base decisions on neither quality nor price, and where suppliers don't even answer to the consumers but rather to government and quasi-government entities (insurance companies). You show me a market where buyers don't care about price and quality and where suppliers dont' really answer to those consumers for it and I'll show you one messed up market full of skyrocketeing prices and inefficiency. In short, I'll show you a socialist bureaucracy.
Well, John Stossel lays all that out in first person with great eloquence in this piece:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/04/20/stossel-have-lung-cancer-my-medical-care-is-excellent-but-customer-service-stinks.html?intcmp=hpbt4
the answer? It's harsh, no one wants to hear it, but the only way is to get price and quality decisions a) back in the hands of consumers, and b) have consumers actually care about the price.
I just recently had a kidney stone. I've had one before, I had no idea what it was the first time, but this time I knew what was happening. last time they made me wait in pain for about 2 hours, then finally got some morpheine (you'd think they were handing out pure poison), then after a $4,000 bill later they told me to go home, take pain meds and give it a day or two to pass and come back if it didn't.
This time I went just to get pain meds, was told it was a 4 hour wait (after being treated like a drug addict wandering in despite being well presented and having my insurance card etc.), i went home and self medicated what pain meds I could get, and it passed the next day.
if I had to pay that $4K bill direct the following would have happened in short order: a) that bill would be way less b/c if they billed like that they'd have no business, and b) I'd have just self-medicated for a day or two and see how it went.
No, that's not a world of free endless MRIs for every belly ache, and yes some who maybe could have been helped may go untreated longer, but in a world without unlimited resources that's the way things work, and for every one of those we will see others who ARE helped b/c they have better access to care b/c costs are lower and providers are efficient and every American has more money b/c we aren't wasting trillions on a socialist mess through our private spending plus massive federal and state budgets.
In the end health care would be BETTER on average for people. Care will in the end be rationed, ALL things even in socialist and communist countries are rationed, the only question is if we will do it in the most efficient manner possible so we get the most consumer benefit possible, or if we will do it the socialist way so we all feel more equal but are also all worse off.