It is depressing. If I am about to die, I will pay whatever you want to charge. And if you collude with others, my negotiating position is toast. In addition, as a free citizen I am always able to invent a treatment that is so expensive that my fellow countrymen can't afford it. That's the nature of being a free person. Yet my fellow countrymen seem to be pretty pissed at this and are threatening to take whatever treatments I might invent and distribute them to the needy. You can call it socialism, but it's also just populist politics.
All this means that traditional market principles don't map exactly in the world of health care (I think they mostly map, just not exactly)
If I am not about to die, but I'm not paying my bills, then you're no longer providing me a service -- you're providing it to whoever is paying. And they're just playing numbers games trying to keep making more than they are spending.
There are some real, serious, foundational problems with health care. None of the current proposals by any party will even begin to fix them. What we're going to end up with, unfortunately, is a situation like every other big political problem -- the politicians will get more votes arguing about it and keeping it broken than they will actually fixing it. So it will remain broken.
Sorry -- not cheering you up so far, huh?
I could spitball some possible solutions. Make it illegal for anybody to pay my medical bills except myself, my family, and charities. Require all doctors to perform 2 years of public health service instead of some of the internships they are currently doing. Have a national standard definition of all medical procedures and require all health providers to publicly post prices for those procedures. Take the percentage of people who cannot afford treatment each year and require all health providers to provide that percentage of free service.
Of course none of that will ever happen.
I will say something political simply because it amazes me: the party who is on television right now demonizing the insurance and pharmaceutical companies is also the party that cut deals with these same industries to limit imported drugs and not have a public option. This virtually guarantees that those industries will be printing money for the foreseeable future. If I told you this five years ago you'd call me a fantastical liar. It's incredible.
All this means that traditional market principles don't map exactly in the world of health care (I think they mostly map, just not exactly)
If I am not about to die, but I'm not paying my bills, then you're no longer providing me a service -- you're providing it to whoever is paying. And they're just playing numbers games trying to keep making more than they are spending.
There are some real, serious, foundational problems with health care. None of the current proposals by any party will even begin to fix them. What we're going to end up with, unfortunately, is a situation like every other big political problem -- the politicians will get more votes arguing about it and keeping it broken than they will actually fixing it. So it will remain broken.
Sorry -- not cheering you up so far, huh?
I could spitball some possible solutions. Make it illegal for anybody to pay my medical bills except myself, my family, and charities. Require all doctors to perform 2 years of public health service instead of some of the internships they are currently doing. Have a national standard definition of all medical procedures and require all health providers to publicly post prices for those procedures. Take the percentage of people who cannot afford treatment each year and require all health providers to provide that percentage of free service.
Of course none of that will ever happen.
I will say something political simply because it amazes me: the party who is on television right now demonizing the insurance and pharmaceutical companies is also the party that cut deals with these same industries to limit imported drugs and not have a public option. This virtually guarantees that those industries will be printing money for the foreseeable future. If I told you this five years ago you'd call me a fantastical liar. It's incredible.