Why can't the market deliver healthcare at a low cost?

There aren't any fascists on the right. But there sure are a bunch on the left busily trying to tell everyone else how to live their lives and what and how much they can and cannot have.

If there is a civil war in this country it will be the fascist left that starts it because they couldn't take no for an answer.

 

Do you understand how Medicare works?
You cannot balance bill a patient

 

Apparently you haven't the least clue. They can charge whatever they want but the government will only pay so much.

 

Same old fail.
P-A- thetic

 

And you can't balance bill the patient.

 

The free market was in play first half of the 20th century. Pay per service was common. The system swung into a slow change when employers started offering benefits to increase perks to acquire quality employees.

What I think is more beneficial for the long term, is insurance companies and the medical industry focusing their products and services to cater to the individual market, not each other.

 

I don’t care if you go back and look or not. Your claims remain proven false.

 

You claimed there were posts big boy.
Let's do this.

 

And you know where they are.

 

So weak

 

Our medicare? Here in Not America? Yes, since every citizen has had it for decades.

 

Trickle down healthcare.

 

It's trump's fault.

See how easy I explained that?

 

Yes, I KNOW that. Drs who aren't happy with that amount will charge the patient directly at the time of service (whatever amount they choose to charge for their services). It's on the patient to then seek reimbursement from Govt, or not - as they see fit. Govt will reimburse the standard fee, and any shortfall between that and what the Dr charged has already been paid by the patient at time of service. The doctor is therefore not 'balance billing' anyone, at any time.

At least 50% of private practitioners still charge this way. So in effect at least half our citizens are potentially paying that shortfall out of pocket - should they use Drs who charge more than average. Some refuse to do this, of course, and will seek out Drs who bill govt directly.

 

That's assumpuatious!

 

So lets examine three options

usps has a monopoly... but has no profit motive
Some private company achieves a monopoly and does have a profit motive
Or many companies compete with a profit motive

Which will result in a lower price... i think option one... usps

 

Then sometimes the patient does have a choice. Right?

It's been at least three decades since I was last under a doctor's care. You think I haven't experienced any "medical events" in that timespan?

Obviously "only" should be substituted for the underlined, as that's what second, third, fourth and nth opinions are all about. That aside, prospective patients would do well to consider how many emergencies might be avoided by the refusal to self-abuse.

And that requirement can't be lifted because...?

lol

 

In many parts of the country it is the ONLY place one can go. So you ad hom only proves you know you have lost this discussion.
And if there is other places, one has no clue what the costs are. And usually, only one is reasonably within distance..

If one is in an ambulance with a heart attack, there is no wanting a product, if one still wants to live, it's required to go there and there is usually not choice on where you are going, but for the closest.
FACE IT. Healthcare is not FREE Market, never was never will be.
Now, come back with another lost debate ad hom.

Before hand preparing? Nobody under the age of 50 is going to do such a thing. Nor should they be required. Again, Healthcare is NOT free market. Its a service and limited option service at that.

 

How is it a free market since most markets are monopolized with 1 or 2 options.
Prices are NOT known. And in an emergency life threatening case, the closets place is the only option.
Healthcare is a service of limited option. Nothing close to a free market where you choose your place of choice based on price.

 

So your obligated to pay the balance?

 

Link. Was that paying for services with a chicken? When healthcare was putting on a bandaid, by a neighbor?

 

That's just silly.

BTW, don't you buy chicken with your money?

 

What is silly is thinking there was ever a free market in healthcare.
And the poster had to relate to a point over 100 yrs ago. When there was virtually nothing in healthcare, but some church run hospitals for no profit.

 

Are you satisfied with the answer(s) you have? Or do you want some more input? If you want more input, I have a couple more answers for you that cover some of the objections others have made.

1) Government spending. All this talk of crony capitalism and corporate greed, etc., also occur in every other major field, but they don't prevent the free market from working. What actually happens to drive up costs is government spending. The same thing is happening in college tuition... the more government pays, the higher the costs go. Here's a simple way to look at it: Average Joe has X dollars a year in income. Most of that goes to paying for his housing, another chunk to paying for his transportation, smaller chunks to clothes and food. If he has kids, a big chunk goes to paying for their clothes and food. All of that leaves him with Y dollars for health care, which is probably less than 10% of his total income X. The average health care cost per year is H, which is somewhere north of Average Joe's Y dollars to spend on health care. So the government comes in and says, "We're going to help you, Joe, we're going to pay the difference H-Y dollars to help you pay for health care." "Great!" thinks Joe. "Great!" think the doctors and hospitals. Now the doctors and hospitals, knowing the government is going to pay the difference H-Y, can raise the cost of H and make more money. Average Joe is content as long as he doesn't have to pay any more than Y, the doctors & hospitals are content because they can keep raising the cost of H every year, and the politicians aren't spending their own money, so their fulminations don't change the basic agreement. The only people who get screwed in this scenario are Taxpayer Ted and Poor Pete. Taxpayer Ted ends up paying far more in taxes year after year for more and more expensive health care, and Poor Pete ends up seeing a bigger and bigger gap between his income (if any) and the cost of getting his medical issues treated.

2) Poor minorities. Lefties insist on comparing the United States to European countries and lamenting how we don't have national health care like all those rich, white countries in Europe. (Never mind that we're much richer than them, we just have different spending priorities.) But a better analogy would be to Brazil, which has a white minority and a black/Hispanic majority. There's tons of crap Brazil can't afford because the number of actual taxpaying citizens is much smaller than the number of people dependent on government aid. We're not there yet, but we're headed in that direction. It's blacks and Hispanics who are dependent on government services who prevent the US from having a national health care system. Not that it works for whites, either, Vermont gave up on having a state-wide health care single-payer system because they couldn't afford it, and Vermont is 95% white, it's just a question of recognizing reality. Vermont did. Lefties don't. (To their credit, few Democrats in Congress believe a national health care system is either possible or desirable. It's only their left-wing base who do.)

 

Unions are non-profit too, and yet conservatives openly accused all unions of existing solely for the purpose of profiteering. Being non-profit means nothing. Susan G Kommen is non-profit, and yet their executives make huge profits (only 10% of their revenue goes to cancer reseatch)