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How to reduce health care prices 80% in 2 easy steps:

Yeah Joe Average son has cancer. Joe is going to 'look around' for the cheapest Doctors and Chemo? No, he's not. Competition does NOT work in Heath Care.

When he comes to your, or a loved ones health NO ONE is going to 'shop around' like they do when they're buying a new set of tires.
 
vegas giants said:
Maybe google heart bypass.
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Yup. What was that supposed to show? That in heavily subsidized and controlled industries, prices can skyrocket?

Well, yeah?


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cpwill said:
Yup. What was that supposed to show? That in heavily subsidized and controlled industries, prices can skyrocket?

Well, yeah?


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What country uses your model again?
 
Smarten up the insurance companies. And lawyers. A huge part of the cost of health care in the US is malpractice insurance and lawsuits. When a doctor has to make a quarter-million just to pay for his insurance, imagine what a hospital has to make. And that's just insurance, before any other costs are covered and before any pocket money is made.
 
SonOfDaedalus said:
We're having a sale on heart valve replacements!

We should copy a system that already works in some other country rather than experiment.
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Lol....and what system would that be ? Single payer ?

So the solution to cleaning up the massive mess that was caused by unprecedented Govt intervention into our health insurance industry, is to give the Govt MORE authority ?

Horrible idea, if the ACAs has proven anything its that Govt is wasteful, corrupt and inept when it comes to running our Healthcare industry.
 
James972 said:
1) have people shop with their own money or vouchers and keep what they don't spend
2) have providers compete on basis of price and quality
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Have you tried shopping around for the best price while unconscious or while suffering a heart attack?

Some of the most expensive care happens in the ER and people in the ER aren't in a position to shop around. There are many other obvious examples of care that people cannot realistically shop for. Have you thought about all the types of care that are consumed - even by general category - and worked out a realistic scenario in which people could shop around for it?
 
James972 said:
1) have people shop with their own money or vouchers and keep what they don't spend
2) have providers compete on basis of price and quality
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You missed the most important one.

Kill all the lawyers.
 
cpwill said:
Maybe Google "Lasik" ;)

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Non life threatening, non emergency and not required

So people have the time to shop around and or not have the procedure done. A broken leg, while generally not life threatening still requires medical attention that probably limits comparison shopping. A medical emergency certainly precludes being able to due comparison shopping for the best hospital and best doctor at the best rate. Spending 4 hrs on the computer checking prices and reputations might see the potential patient becoming a corpse. Of course that would save in medical costs so I guess that would be a win
 
I have no doubt, over the years, many have witnessed and participated in similar threads. I also have no doubts after reading much of what has been said, that healthcare in the US needs a new rethinking from the onset through death. I say onset rather than birth because I believe preventative healthcare should commence with preconception, the healthcare of the potential parents, a prenatal care prior to prenatal. This can only occur with a shift of thinking from remuneration for treating symptoms to focus on prevention. Obviously we cannot walk away from treating symptoms, yet prevention will reduce both illnesses and costs. It would be far less expensive to increase physical education and teach exercise as a pleasure, in our school systems from preschool forward, to prevent obesity and all the accompanying illnesses like diabetes type II and many cancers, as well as Atherosclerosis which leads to heart disease, strokes, insufficient blood supply to lower limbs followed by gangrene and amputation, and sight issues.

Children, when healthy, are naturally physical, and that physicality should be encouraged as much as possible in our education system. Healthy bodies, well exercised means more muscle mass, which in turn develop with increased blood vessel formation, meaning less stress for the heart and arterial system, and more blood delivery to the brain. The benefits are obvious. In tandem, the best possible nutritional guidance must be taught and become part of our school lunch systems. Designed to maintain healthy bodies, which means learning far more about nutrition. A necessary adjunct to healthcare where we have another imbroglio of methodology. We study the effects of specific foods in the diet without examining how those same foods interact with other dietary intake is meaningless. And when a food study shows eating cheese is good for the heart, but the study is underwritten by the Wisconsin Cheese Association, can the study be trusted? Reduce the demand for healthcare by living physically preventative lives will reduce demand, and concurrently reduce costs for healthcare. No other species can run with the same stamina as human beings. Why do we tell our children to walk, not run? Why aren't we teaching them to enjoy the running?

https://youtu.be/6TWwyhCVBDg
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Non life threatening, non emergency and not required
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Ah. So, like the vast majority of health care purchases, then.

So people have the time to shop around and or not have the procedure done. A broken leg, while generally not life threatening still requires medical attention that probably limits comparison shopping. A medical emergency certainly precludes being able to due comparison shopping for the best hospital and best doctor at the best rate. Spending 4 hrs on the computer checking prices and reputations might see the potential patient becoming a corpse. Of course that would save in medical costs so I guess that would be a win
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...Oh, I dunno. As a child I spent easily more than that with a broken arm on multiple occasions, and walked on a broken able for two days as a teen. Neither ever seemed life-threatening.


You are confusing price inelasticity for certain services at certain times with price inelasticity over an entire industry.

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cpwill said:
Yup. What was that supposed to show? That in heavily subsidized and controlled industries, prices can skyrocket?

Well, yeah?


Sent from my XT1526 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Lasik follows a supply/demand curve like any other product.

Heart bypass does not because its demand curve is infinity.
 
James972 said:
1) have people shop with their own money or vouchers and keep what they don't spend
2) have providers compete on basis of price and quality
Click to expand...

I think those 2 things would reduce prices. Not by 80%, but by a significant ammount. But here's the question. What do you think we should do when a poor person is having a heart attack and comes in to the hospital but afford the reduced price for surgery/care? Should we continue to make the hospital treat them and reimburse them for unpaid expenses or should we leave the person on the street?
 
James972 said:
deregulation works extremely well on 99% of products
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If producers are willing to do what thez do for passion and not for profit than you are right. The swine meet produced in Germany is not really very profitable because there are too much offer for the market. But many families keep doing for the tradition. Also because in Germany people are more conformable with long term results, which I don't believe be the case in America.

The same happens to a lot of agricultural and dairy products, reason why historically has been part of the protectionism policies in developed counties, our subsided.
 
James972 said:
1) have people shop with their own money or vouchers and keep what they don't spend
2) have providers compete on basis of price and quality
Click to expand...

I don't know how much you know about the health care industry but I worked in the industry for forty years. Your suggestions would work except that the industry is based on who has the newest equipment and services. That is what they advertise. People are always going to go to the newest as they think that it is naturally the best for their family and the newest is always the most expensive. We need to educate the public to be a lot more knowing about the industry before your idea would work as sometimes the old is just as good as the new. Don't know if that made any sense, but it is true. The second problem is how would you decide how big the voucher? Someone with cancer would need a much larger voucher than a healthy 20 year old.
 
SenorXm/Sirius said:
Yeah Joe Average son has cancer. Joe is going to 'look around' for the cheapest Doctors and Chemo? No, he's not. Competition does NOT work in Heath Care.

When he comes to your, or a loved ones health NO ONE is going to 'shop around' like they do when they're buying a new set of tires.
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Competition still works to a point, but an essential service with inelastic demand in which geographical immediacy is a critical factor behaves more like someone selling bottled water after a natural disaster than it resembles the auto tire market.
 
SenorXm/Sirius said:
Yeah Joe Average son has cancer. Joe is going to 'look around' for the cheapest Doctors and Chemo? No, he's not. Competition does NOT work in Heath Care.

When he comes to your, or a loved ones health NO ONE is going to 'shop around' like they do when they're buying a new set of tires.
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Can you imagine Average Joe's level of stress if he has to decide on whether to save his sick son via the cheap doctor and low grade chemo or should he let his son die and instead buy a needed set of tires? Average Joe might go bonkers .... and choose to kill either himself or others!
 
independentusa said:
We need to educate the public to be a lot more knowing about the industry before your idea would work
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and nothing would encourage them to learn more than getting to keep the money they did not waste on health care. Make sense?
 
independentusa said:
The second problem is how would you decide how big the voucher? Someone with cancer would need a much larger voucher than a healthy 20 year old.
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voucher would be based on health/age. if someone needed more they could get another voucher but with prices down 80% it would not be a burden to provide the extra voucher.
 
Trippy Trekker said:
Can you imagine Average Joe's level of stress if he has to decide on whether to save his sick son via the cheap doctor and low grade chemo or should he let his son die and instead buy a needed set of tires? Average Joe might go bonkers .... and choose to kill either himself or others!
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so liberal govt has to step into the father's role since it is more loving than the father??
 
SenorXm/Sirius said:
When he comes to your, or a loved ones health NO ONE is going to 'shop around' like they do when they're buying a new set of tires.
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why not?? if you want the best price and quality which we all do we will all shop around. I have a friend who went from Maine to PA to save $1600 on an mri. Makes sense now?
 
C R O I X said:
If producers are willing to do what thez do for passion and not for profit than you are right.
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not sure what you mean. a passion for profit can help motivate someone to provide the best price and quality possible
 
roughdraft274 said:
I think those 2 things would reduce prices. Not by 80%, but by a significant ammount. But here's the question. What do you think we should do when a poor person is having a heart attack and comes in to the hospital but afford the reduced price for surgery/care? Should we continue to make the hospital treat them and reimburse them for unpaid expenses or should we leave the person on the street?
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make the hospital treat them at the 80% reduced free market price and govt pays, happily at that price.
 
Deuce said:
Lasik follows a supply/demand curve like any other product.

Heart bypass does not because its demand curve is infinity.
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what??? everyone who needs a bypass demands it and everyone who needs food demands it. The market sets the price in under my plan at about 20% of current prices.
 
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