I’m full of questions this morning. These questions are about health care reform.
- How can you have a free market in health care without changing both the consumer and producer sides of the equation?
- How can health care be internationalized while still protecting patients from quacks and medical malfeasance?
1) I’m not sure what is meant by a free market.
2) We can always renegotiate our existing trade agreements to include medical standards. I have a feeling the AMA will pull out the stops to prevent it.
There is no such thing as an enforceable international civil law.
As to a free market both Republicans and Democrats have tried to incorporate market principles into their plans. Their efforts have focused on consumers rather than producers. I don’t see how any free market system can work with high barriers to entry.
Or, shorter, I don’t know what they mean by it, either.
There can be no free-market. The healthcare free-market model would be the same as the airline model. People would clamor for low prices, but they would complain about what they bought.
People did not want to pay for unneeded services, and they got a-la-carte pricing. There are few options because the airlines cater to the majority of their customers. The free-market theory breaks down because people who could afford the pay-one-price model have other options.
This is really not that hard. The airlines do not screw-over their customers. They provide the exact service for the price their customers are willing to pay. Please, could somebody explain to me why it would be any different? In your explanation include why an older person would want to pay for pregnancy care?
(Cut the cord will be the same. When only ESPN users pay for it, ESPN will need to make up the loss somewhere, and can anybody guess who will pay.)
My wife’s COBRA benefits are ending, and I got a taste of Healthcare.gov. I was thoroughly satisfied with the website and process, but most likely, I am in the minority. It is pretty, but for me, it is lacking in functionality. Whatever the hell the broker system is supposed to be, it needs to die a quick but painful death.
I have settled on a policy, and for my wife’s medical usage, I went with the Platinum level. I will re-evaluate at the end of the year. She takes a medication for headaches, but it is expensive. (It is not the most effective, but her existing coverage will not cover it.) She has been going to a neurologist several times a year, and when they are trying to find the best medicine or “cocktail”, it could be monthly or or sooner.
At this time, I can absorb the increase, but for many people I know, it is between a week’s and month’s paycheck. (I try to avoiding telling them what I pay. People at the bottom do not want to be reminded of their situation.)
Between the deductible and out-of-pocket max, most of the people that have an individual policy are screwed. Paying one or two thousand dollars for a deductible (much less for the out-of-pocket max) would bankrupt them. It does not matter how much their premium is subsidized, these policies are worthless, and anybody who does not understand this is living in a different universe.
On The Healthcare.gov website, you can compare prices without creating an account, but I had to jump through several hoops. (I checked eligibility, and then, I could compare plans without an account.) Anybody should be able to see what “affordable” means.
I will see how this works out. If the premium increases substantially, I may have a different opinion, but while I would like a lower premium, I am optimistically satisfied. The website and broker nonsense were quite unpleasant.
That’s the kernel of the problem. Putting the “Affordable” into the Affordable Care Act is long overdue and we’ve wasted the last seven years.
For people at the bottom Medicaid or a public health system is required for them to obtain almost any healthcare. Period. The people at the bottom have problems that few middle or upper income people appreciate. (Again, I want to know why the children of middle and upper income families are not required to “pull themselves by their bootstraps. If your child has not moved up, they are a slacker, and you are a failure.)
A national healthcare system could include negotiated pricing with an existing private network, and it can be structured in a way that would leave a free-market option. The question is “who would choose the free-market system instead of the cheaper public system?” I would suggest that it would be the same people who buy a-la-carte tickets but expect all-in-one service.
On an internationalized healthcare system, I am not opposed, but in addition to the listed problems, there are travel expenses and language issues.
I cannot afford to fly down to Brazil every time my wife has a sniffle.