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Necessary Healthcare - Supply and Demand

If the cost of cancer treatment goes up significantly, which of the following results?

  • Less people get cancer - supply and demand.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • More people get cancer.

    Votes: 1 3.2%

  • The cost of cancer treatment has nothing at all to do with the number of people with cancer.

    Votes: 30 96.8%
  • Total voters
    31
SouthernDemocrat said:
I am well aware that cancer rates have nothing to do with the cost of cancer treatments. Just like diabetes rates have nothing to do with the cost of insulin. The rates of arterial sclerosis have nothing to do with the cost of heart surgery. That is my point. For a free market system to bring down the costs of healthcare, there would have to be a relationship between the cost of cancer treatment and cancer rates, or the cost of insulin and diabetes rates and so on.
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I don't think the free market is capable of bringing down health care costs but the answer is not to stiff all the providers. That doesn't bring down provider's costs either. All of the left's policies seem to hinge on eliminating all businesses and bring on monopolies that the government can control or have the government itself be the monopoly. That's what I don't like about liberalism. Example: Liberals want to raise the minimum wage up so high that many small businesses will go under, eventually leaving Walmart as the only retail outlet and McDonalds as the only fast food restaurant and then the government can set controls on them. All of the small mom and pops won't be able to survive. And that's what the left want with government run health care. Put hundreds or thousands of businesses out of business and run healthcare with a government monopoly which will run with all the same red tape and bureaucracy that the the health insurance companies had.
 
Moderate Right said:
I don't think the free market is capable of bringing down health care costs but the answer is not to stiff all the providers. That doesn't bring down provider's costs either. All of the left's policies seem to hinge on eliminating all businesses and bring on monopolies that the government can control or have the government itself be the monopoly. That's what I don't like about liberalism. Example: Liberals want to raise the minimum wage up so high that many small businesses will go under, eventually leaving Walmart as the only retail outlet and McDonalds as the only fast food restaurant and then the government can set controls on them. All of the small mom and pops won't be able to survive. And that's what the left want with government run health care. Put hundreds or thousands of businesses out of business and run healthcare with a government monopoly which will run with all the same red tape and bureaucracy that the the health insurance companies had.
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Half of all healthcare markets are already monopolies where one health system controls everything.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Half of all healthcare markets are already monopolies where one health system controls everything.
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Are you saying that having a handful of health insurance companies is a monopoly and that one health insurance company's rules and regulations are a health system that controls everything?
 
Unemployment compensation for simply being unemployed, at the equivalent to fourteen dollars an hour and a fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage for actually providing labor input to our economy, should make it possible for any adult to afford some kind of coverage.
 
Moderate Right said:
Are you saying that having a handful of health insurance companies is a monopoly and that one health insurance company's rules and regulations are a health system that controls everything?
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I am saying I think you need to research this more. And I am not talking reading liberal or conservative arguments on it, but rather look at the work healthcare economists are doing. Half of all healthcare markets in this county are monopolies where one health system basically controls the entire market. This means that insurers and consumers have no ability to negotiate price in those markets. A patient (healthcare consumer), is largely captive. You must consume healthcare in the market you are in. For example, if you live in Wichita, the closest competing healthcare market is 3 hours or more away, so the vast majority of your healthcare you would get in Wichita. So if one large health system owned most of the providers in Wichita (this is an example scenario), then you and your insurer have no choice but to pay whatever they want to make you pay.

No other developed nation does healthcare like we do it. There are nations with single payer systems and with multi-payer systems, but regardless in every other developed nation, there are way more regulations on providers and on insurers than we have. They do this to avoid all the rent seeking behavior present in our system where the healthcare sector is now leaching nearly 1/5 of our economy to provide no better care than our competing nations do at a fraction of the cost.
 
By solving for simple poverty we can expect growth in private sector markets due that increase in market participation; and, that should engender better products at potentially lower cost, along with a positive multiplier effect.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
I am saying I think you need to research this more. And I am not talking reading liberal or conservative arguments on it, but rather look at the work healthcare economists are doing. Half of all healthcare markets in this county are monopolies where one health system basically controls the entire market. This means that insurers and consumers have no ability to negotiate price in those markets. A patient (healthcare consumer), is largely captive. You must consume healthcare in the market you are in. For example, if you live in Wichita, the closest competing healthcare market is 3 hours or more away, so the vast majority of your healthcare you would get in Wichita. So if one large health system owned most of the providers in Wichita (this is an example scenario), then you and your insurer have no choice but to pay whatever they want to make you pay.

No other developed nation does healthcare like we do it. There are nations with single payer systems and with multi-payer systems, but regardless in every other developed nation, there are way more regulations on providers and on insurers than we have. They do this to avoid all the rent seeking behavior present in our system where the healthcare sector is now leaching nearly 1/5 of our economy to provide no better care than our competing nations do at a fraction of the cost.
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Despite your opposition to the politicos who will actually fix or try to fix the problem, I appreciate your earnest disclosure of the unsustainable flaws with the American health care system. It is lost on or unknown to so many free market ideologues that the US market is in fact exceedingly consolidated and monopolistic, beyond the basic irreconcilable and fundamental issues with for profit healthcare.
 
danielpalos said:
By solving for simple poverty we can expect growth in private sector markets due that increase in market participation; and, that should engender better products at potentially lower cost, along with a positive multiplier effect.
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Eliminating simple poverty is not going to magically reform the fundamental issues with for-profit healthcare repeatedly stated throughout this thread. You can lift as many people out of poverty as you like, and it will not change the fact that a for profit system engenders perverse incentives and efficiency destroying rent-seeking, is fundamentally unethical, features indelible information asymmetries, and a captive audience for an essential good with inelastic demand.
 
Surrealistik said:
Eliminating simple poverty is not going to magically reform the fundamental issues with for-profit healthcare repeatedly stated throughout this thread. You can lift as many people out of poverty as you like, and it will not change the fact that a for profit system engenders perverse incentives and efficiency destroying rent-seeking, is fundamentally unethical, features indelible information asymmetries, and a captive audience for an essential good with inelastic demand.
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Capital is a requirement under capitalism. You are claiming that by solving for a poverty of Capital, things won't be better and markets won't find new and more equitable, equilibriums.
 
danielpalos said:
Capital is a requirement under capitalism. You are claiming that by solving for a poverty of Capital, things won't be better and markets won't find new and more equitable, equilibriums.
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It's more that you're claiming that by getting people past the poverty line, these issues will somehow magically be resolved with the addition of purchasing power when the problems described have nothing to do with a lack of raw purchasing power in the first place, other than in the regard that the poor (and often the middle class) can't afford healthcare without incurring bankruptcy.
 
Surrealistik said:
It's more that you're claiming that by getting people past the poverty line, these issues will somehow magically be resolved with the addition of purchasing power when the problems described have nothing to do with a lack of raw purchasing power in the first place, other than in the regard that the poor (and often the middle class) can't afford healthcare without incurring bankruptcy.
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You don't know that without crunching the numbers. Simply increasing market participation can lower costs.
 
danielpalos said:
You don't know that without crunching the numbers. Simply increasing market participation can lower costs.
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That 'can' seems pretty operative. And if it does lower costs, will it do so by about to 50% to be on par with the rest of the developed world? It sure as hell doesn't resolve the other issues I mentioned: purchasing power is not getting rid of the perverse incentives, the information asymmetry or the fundamentally exploitable nature of for profit healthcare, nor the ethical issues of directly tying one's ability to live with the contents of their wallet.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
If the price of houses go up too much, then less people buy a home and instead opt to live with their parents longer, share rent with someone and so on. If the price of a new car goes up too much, then less people buy a new car, and instead will continue to drive older ones, share a car and so on. If the price of a new TV goes up too much, you don't buy one, or you buy less of them. That is how it works with most goods and services.

With that in mind, is there any relationship at all between the cost of cancer treatment and the number of people afflicted with cancer? Is there any relationship at all with the cost of a heart bypass, and the number of people with a coronary blockage? Is there any relationship between the cost of insulin, and the number of diabetics?
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There is a relationship between cost and the number of people who get the treatment they need, but not how many develop it. And by extension there are fewer people who get properly diagnosed so that could mislead people into believing people don't have it.
 
Surrealistik said:
That 'can' seems pretty operative. And if it does lower costs, will it do so by about to 50% to be on par with the rest of the developed world? It sure as hell doesn't resolve the other issues I mentioned: purchasing power is not getting rid of the perverse incentives, the information asymmetry or the fundamentally exploitable nature of for profit healthcare, nor the ethical issues of directly tying one's ability to live with the contents of their wallet.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
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Or a better understanding of economics.

Here is a simple math illustration.

Let's say an insurance firm needs a certain amount of revenue to remain profitable.

how much can that insurance firm charge a less amount of customers versus a greater amount of customers?
 
danielpalos said:
Or a better understanding of economics.

Here is a simple math illustration.

Let's say an insurance firm needs a certain amount of revenue to remain profitable.

how much can that insurance firm charge a less amount of customers versus a greater amount of customers?
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I'm familiar with such things as volume/economy of scale and the tradeoff between sales and margin.

But you're not going to get anywhere close to the cost savings present in other first world countries due to the major contributors of cost inefficiency remaining. Health insurance profit margins are currently averaging 4-5.25%, a few may be in the high single digits; that's not much room to be decremented by volume. Even if you were to argue about cascading savings from payers to providers to suppliers, the fact is that there isn't all that much room to move cost down via simple volume. It would be astonishing if you could manage 10% savings, nevermind 50%. A 'better understanding of economics' would conclude about as much.

And again, this is only addressing the single issue and dimension of cost, nevermind the litany of other issues.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
If the price of houses go up too much, then less people buy a home and instead opt to live with their parents longer, share rent with someone and so on. If the price of a new car goes up too much, then less people buy a new car, and instead will continue to drive older ones, share a car and so on. If the price of a new TV goes up too much, you don't buy one, or you buy less of them. That is how it works with most goods and services.

With that in mind, is there any relationship at all between the cost of cancer treatment and the number of people afflicted with cancer? Is there any relationship at all with the cost of a heart bypass, and the number of people with a coronary blockage? Is there any relationship between the cost of insulin, and the number of diabetics?
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If the cost of cancer treatment goes up significantly more people will die of cancer, if they don't have insurance.

Why markets can’t cure healthcare
 
Surrealistik said:
I'm familiar with such things as volume/economy of scale and the tradeoff between sales and margin.

But you're not going to get anywhere close to the cost savings present in other first world countries due to the major contributors of cost inefficiency remaining. Health insurance profit margins are currently averaging 4-5.25%, a few may be in the high single digits; that's not much room to be decremented by volume. Even if you were to argue about cascading savings from payers to providers to suppliers, the fact is that there isn't all that much room to move cost down via simple volume. It would be astonishing if you could manage 10% savings, nevermind 50%. A 'better understanding of economics' would conclude about as much.

And again, this is only addressing the single issue and dimension of cost, nevermind the litany of other issues.
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A positive multiplier effect must be a positive thing. Besides, we are discussing solving simple poverty along with a fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage. There must be enough volume to make a difference.
 
danielpalos said:
A positive multiplier effect must be a positive thing. Besides, we are discussing solving simple poverty along with a fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage. There must be enough volume to make a difference.
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It might have a small positive effect, but your system is still fundamentally broken and vastly overcosted. The potential of volume to reduce costs is very limited.
 
Surrealistik said:
It might have a small positive effect, but your system is still fundamentally broken and vastly overcosted. The potential of volume to reduce costs is very limited.
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Why do some allege, capitalism is more efficient. Why not ensure all markets are "single payer" to achieve similar results?
 
danielpalos said:
Why do some allege, capitalism is more efficient. Why not ensure all markets are "single payer" to achieve similar results?
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Because they're free market/unconditionally pro-private sector ideologues who don't seem to understand how the economics of singlepayer actually work, or have vested interests in the status quo or are shills.

The fact is that free markets and private ownership aren't always a panacea or optimal, and certainly aren't always better than the public sector, just as the public sector isn't always better at achieving results than the private sector. Just as we wouldn't privatize firefighting, police or the military, because the outcomes would be obviously disastrous, so too should we not have private involvement in healthcare. Likewise, I wouldn't want the public sector taking over consumer electronics. In matters of healthcare, the public sector consistently has a demonstrably far better record with far fewer ethical lapses, and as a general rule, the less private involvement with healthcare in a developed country, the more efficient healthcare tends to be. Reality is far more nuanced than black and white notions that one is always preferable than the other.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
I am obviously trying to prove a point here. There are those that argue that we need to make healthcare more subject to market forces. In a true fully functioning market, if the cost of chemo went up too much, the number of breast cancer sufferers would go down - supply and demand. Of course, we know that isn't the case. It's why every other developed nation recognizes that necessary healthcare is a market failure.
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Fallacious premise, the cost of treatment doesn't drive the occurrence of the disease. Getting a disease isn't a personal option like buying a new car or moving out of your parent's house. What would like happen is healthcare in premiums would have to go up to cover the risk.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
I am obviously trying to prove a point here. There are those that argue that we need to make healthcare more subject to market forces. In a true fully functioning market, if the cost of chemo went up too much, the number of breast cancer sufferers would go down - supply and demand. Of course, we know that isn't the case. It's why every other developed nation recognizes that necessary healthcare is a market failure.
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Maybe the number seeking treatment would change but not actual cases of the disease.
 
Surrealistik said:
Because they're free market/unconditionally pro-private sector ideologues who don't seem to understand how the economics of singlepayer actually work, or have vested interests in the status quo or are shills.

The fact is that free markets and private ownership aren't always a panacea or optimal, and certainly aren't always better than the public sector, just as the public sector isn't always better at achieving results than the private sector. Just as we wouldn't privatize firefighting, police or the military, because the outcomes would be obviously disastrous, so too should we not have private involvement in healthcare. Likewise, I wouldn't want the public sector taking over consumer electronics. In matters of healthcare, the public sector consistently has a demonstrably far better record with far fewer ethical lapses, and as a general rule, the less private involvement with healthcare in a developed country, the more efficient healthcare tends to be. Reality is far more nuanced than black and white notions that one is always preferable than the other.
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I agree with you to the extent that "health-care decisions should be on a not-for-profit basis" to the extent possible under our form of Capitalism.

Solving simple poverty needs to happen anyway. And, with greater market participation and fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage; will what you claim regarding costs, be that important?
 
Surrealistik said:
The fact is that free markets and private ownership aren't always a panacea or optimal, and certainly aren't always better than the public sector, just as the public sector isn't always better at achieving results than the private sector.
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For private goods, markets are clearly superior. Food is more important than healthcare, yet presumably you don't support collective farms and state-run grocery stores. Same story with housing, phones, furniture, cars, umbrellas, ad nauseam. I can't think of a single private good that can be produced better and cheaper by the state.

Just as we wouldn't privatize firefighting, police or the military, because the outcomes would be obviously disastrous,
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No, it's because national defense is a public good. There is no market for what police do.

the public sector consistently has a demonstrably far better record with far fewer ethical lapses,
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Really? Politicians have fewer "ethical lapses"? What world do you live in? I'm on planet earth, where are you?
 
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