Maggie's Farm

Wants vs Needs

When you say "wants", it's fairly obvious that this is something determined by the patient based on what he subjectively values.

However, when you refer to "needs" and imply (by your sentence structure) that these may be equivalent or related to "wants", you're stretching it. I suspect you realize that. Who gets to determine what the patient "needs"? The patient? The doctor? The hospital administrator? The insurance company? Some government agency? Some scientific study?

"Need" is a term favored by the left because it implies that something is not merely desired for one's relative pleasure, but necessary for one's existence. In a world of endless wants and finite resources, this is a crucial distinction.

Back to your point - it's not necessarily unethical for a hospital administrator to provide "unnecessary" services to patients who want and demand (in an economic sense) those services. What is unethical is to advertise them as necessary (make false claims about their virtues or values). I'm sure you would have no problem with a hospital providing a luxury suite, lavish meals, private nursing, valet parking, etc. for some patients and bare bones accommodations for others - provided each group was charged an amount agreed to for the level of services.

In many nations, the room and board items that we consider as "needs" are not routinely supplied. Instead, families are expected to supply the patient's food, clean sheets, etc. Only the medical services are deemed to be included. What can properly be called "hotel and restaurant services" are not.

The problem is that the federal government has intervened and determined what we "need" and they dictate what gets delivered and what gets paid. That's beyond the intellectual abilities of the people actually delivering or receiving medical care.

Insurance companies and their customers SHOULD be free to enter into any insurance contract that is mutually agreeable - but the federal government won't allow this (we're not smart enough). That would allow the insurance company to tailor a policy to fit what you want AND are willing to pay for, i.e. you want more extras, coverage, lower deductible, etc.->you pay higher premiums (this ain't rocket science).

Much of ObamaCare was about mandating that insurance companies include coverage for certain things in ALL policies (such as maternity care or contraceptives for 60 year olds....or nuns). The purpose wasn't to protect customers. It was to transfer wealth from certain taxpayers to special interest groups beholden to the Democrats (in exchange for votes).

As for alternative medicine specifically, the lobbyists for these groups (chiropractors, etc.) have led congress and federal agencies to force insurance companies to cover their services under ALL policies. The government should allow my insurance company to sell me a policy that does not cover services I don't want.....and to charge me less for such a policy. But the lobbyists say that's not fair.

As soon as you throw in "government", your argument vanishes by virtue of the demonstrable fact that when somebody other than the insurer and the insured get to decide what's legitimate, virtually anything can be deemed legitimate or not.

Chiropractic pseudoscience wasn't always covered by Medicare, but cheese (a.k.a. $$$) attracts rats and the chiro lobby persuaded (translation: $$$$$) the federal government to pay for this crap (translation: transfer your tax dollars to quacks). So, now certain chiro manipulations are deemed "legitimate."

Let me make my point again - I re-read my post and I can see didn't emphasize this: The federal government has NO business in healthcare insurance. Wherever and whenever the federal government meddles in healthcare insurance, the costs go up, the quality goes down and the access becomes limited and/or delayed.

Spoken like a true Bernie Sanders useful idiot.

Pharmaceutic companies are behaving rationally in response to government subsidies for their drugs.

When the government provides insurance (Medicare and Medicaid) at below market cost, patients have an incentive to seek more goods (drugs) and services than they would if they were bearing the true cost of these goods and services. As a result, drug companies - acting rationally and responsibly in the interest of their shareholders (that may include you) - increase the price and availability of their drugs.

The same thing happens when (vis government tax laws that favor employer paid medical insurance) insurance is furnished by an employer. Insurance purchased with pre-tax dollars results in higher prices for medical goods and services, i.e. the employee doesn't end up pocketing any savings. The benefit ends up in the hands of the service provider. This is ECON 101.

But the liberal politicians need you to think you're a VICTIM of some rich corporation (run by angry old white Republican men) and that if you vote for them, your problems will be solved. Instead, they create plans and give them bogus names - like Affordable Care Act - that are aimed at creating and illusion of helping you, but which actually make the problems worse or create a new set of problems worse than the original.