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Tuesday, November 13. 2018

Some reasons to prefer choice in medical care.

Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss in Medical at 14:29 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0)

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Thanks for posting, we will be hearing a lot more about this.

#1 grant1863 on 2018-11-13 14:56 (Reply)

Choice is just another word for competition. Without competition, there's no need to bother trying to offer a superior product. And of course individuals differ on what's "superior", it's why there are both Walmarts and Neiman Marcuses and both McDonalds and Ruth's Chris Steakhouses. If you don't think about it much, it might seem that monopoly providers would be the most efficient at delivering goods and services since you've eliminated the inefficient duplication of services, but what stops a monopoly provider from charging the highest possible price he can get?(Price is not just in terms of money - things like convenience, availability, quality and speed of service or the lack thereof are costs you have to pay as well.) Competition allows companies to charge the highest price they can get as well, but as it turns out the highest price they can charge is the lowest price their competitors are willing to offer. If you don't like Kroger, there's a Publix just up the road. And Kroger knows it. Having to explain why a competitive enterprise beats a monopoly enterprise is like having to explain why perpetual motion machines won't work - everybody that comes up with one insists that this one example is somehow different than all the others.

#2 Jerryskids on 2018-11-13 15:36 (Reply)

I've been looking into the competition, and privatization, of Medicare. Not what you'd expect.

http://rightasusual.blogspot.com/2018/11/privatization-of-medicare.html

#3 Linda Fox (Link) on 2018-11-13 16:40 (Reply)

I think that a self financed "single payer" health plan should be one of the choices. Let all who want it create the insurance company, pay to run it and pay the premiums BUT leave the rest of us alone to make our own choices. THAT would be democracy, THAT would be freedom, THAT would be constitutional.

#4 Anon on 2018-11-13 20:44 (Reply)

Most of the advocates of single-payer say that the system would only work if everyone was forced to enroll; that the math would only work if the costs could be evenly spread out amongst 300 million people. But what if one, just one, person wanted to opt out? It wouldn't affect the math of the cost structure at all. Wouldn't the system work just as well with only 299,999,999 people? Of course it would!
So let me opt out. Let anyone opt out. There will still be millions of people enrolled, sharing the risks and the costs. The risks and the costs of the-insurance-scheme itself; some of those risks are that the coverage that YOU want won't be allowed. After all you aren't in charge of the system, you're just a patient.
People who aren't enrolled in the system must still be granted access to actual health providers, to actual medical care. Not being enrolled in an insurance scheme is not justification for denying care. I can get my car fixed at any garage, whether I have comprhensive insurance or not, whether or not I opted for the manufacturer's lifetime maintenance service. The same must apply to humans.. whether I have "single-payer insurance", or another insurance scheme, self-insured, or pay-cash-as-you-go, I must not be denied medical care.
Why are the advocates of Single-payer so adamantly against competition? Why can't there be two or three, or millions, of competing insurance plans? Why do they insist on ONE monolithic method of payment?
What is it about socialists (yes, they are socialists, not individualists) that always insists on a highly centralized authoritarian system that aims to micromanage every aspect of our lives?
It isn't just health insurance -- whether we talk about health, education, local governance, the environment, or anything else, their view is always that there is ONLY ONE correct way to do anything. That everything must either be mandatory or forbidden, never merely recommended or encouraged or discouraged. It's my way or the highway.
Such control freaks, they are. Well, fuck them.

#4.1 Nunnya Bidnez, jr on 2018-11-14 11:09 (Reply)

Make no mistake, this is a plan to create a massive dependent class in America. To make a class of voters who would always vote for more free stuff. The planners know it would destroy the best health care system known to man but what is that with the chance to gain complete and total power over the biggest economy in history. What's next? "Stop Walmart"?

#4.1.1 Anon on 2018-11-16 00:26 (Reply)

All health care, just as with all products, are rationed. The question is who does the rationing.

That the free market health care system we were under was not working is wrong in so many ways. In the first place, there hasn't been a true free market in health care in my memory (over sixty years). There are now some hospitals that publish a price list and allow the patients to shop around (a real free market), but that is rare. A lot of our health care is over seen by the AMA. They are not totally evil, but they do have their own prejudices and preferences that support the status quo.

Then there is the hullabaloo about pre-existing conditions. This is a side effect of employers providing health insurance rather than individuals providing for their own health insurance. My parents bought a life insurance policy for me when I was born. If the model of health insurance was swayed toward that model - where health insurance was purchased at birth, there would be very little need for worry over pre-existing conditions because they would be amortized in a policy that covered the life of the policy holder.

There are a lot of things wrong about our health care system, but none of them will be fixed by single payer.

#5 mudbug on 2018-11-13 22:26 (Reply)

There are only two legitimate options to deal with pre-existing conditions:
1. Allow the insurance to set the premium to accurately and adequately cover the cost to the insurance company.
2. Set up a pool where all preexisting conditions are insured and paid for by all insurance companies BUT still with higher premiums for the insured with those preexisting conditions but at a somewhat lower rate than option 1.

All other options are welfare pure and simple.

#5.1 OneGuy on 2018-11-14 10:42 (Reply)

So, when e dry one was forced to enroll in car insurance, did the rates go down? No. That argument is bad.

Is monopsony better than monopoly, especially when the sole buyer is making purchases for other people? No. That argument is bad, too.

#6 Javelineer on 2018-11-15 05:39 (Reply)

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Tuesday, November 13. 2018

Single-payer