well that's the ideology of like 99% of people who argue under the libertarian banner so i can't fault people for thinking that
I’m not a healthcare wonk or knowledgeable about all the intricacies so I’m hesitant to weigh in as if I have strong opinions. I like what Surgery Center of Oklahoma does but that only works on things that can be planned and for a small segment of routine surgeries. When it gets to emergency and rare I don’t have a good answer for next steps.
Now now, bad faith arguer. When my father fell, hit his head, and couldn't remember something I'd told him 5 seconds prior, I immediately called all the hospitals in the area. I asked them for an itemized pricing for a senior citizen head injury. They all politely sent me their responses and I, along with my incapacitated father, contacted his insurance company to see which was in network. The insurance company quickly jumped at the option to satisfy their paying customer and gave us clear and concise information. We (myself, my father, and the cartoon birds circling his head) crunched the numbers and picked which emergency department to take him to. We didn't act irrationally and drive directly to the nearest ED like the irresponsible consumers who are driving up the healthcare costs in this country might have done, that's for sure!
You see this is where you're wrong. It is only because of government regulation of healthcare that we see profit seekers act unethically. Once government regulations have been abolished entirely our healthcare system will finally behave in a way that is both profitable to the investor and ethical to the consumer. Just look at how ethical healthcare was 120 years ago before that asshole, Teddy Roosevelt, built the modern regulatory state.
There are two ways to control healthcare costs: Treat it like a luxury. Only the wealthiest will have access, but prices will stabilize eventually at a level the wealthy accept. Treat it like a basic human right and have the guarantee guarantee/provide it. That’s it. Any half measure between the two is going to allow prices to continue to increase while failing to deliver care to everyone. Also, if you reading this think Option 1 is acceptable, you are a bad person that should take a long look at themself and question how to stop being a huge piece of shit.
Rent control is an awful solution. Virtually every study from every angle confirms that building more and denser housing is the only way out of a spiral of rent spikes. Regulations against housing are anticompetitive measures put in place by homeowners to juice property values.
The thing to remember about most societal conundrums is that finding solutions to issues is hard, but the libertarian solution is usually the dumbest, most worthless solution available.
This reminded me of what one my professors used to say, “for every complex issue there is almost always a simple solution which almost always is wrong.”
developers won’t build more multifamily housing if they are subject to rent controls. Tenants never leave rent controlled buildings so they aren’t ever redeveloped
I’m hopping in this chat only having skimmed the last 2 pages, but forced transparency from technological innovation is a potential solution, with emergency and rare benefitting from it. Cars and hotels were forced into transparency by third parties making it obvious the price and quality of competing solutions. Having an AI-esque app which is able to access recent rates paid for the same procedures in an area AND having some check on the doctor’s diagnosis can do a couple things. Short Term: 1) Can push people to more optimal outcomes 2) Reduce “upselling” by the doctor / caregiver knowing there will need to be an explanation 3) Force higher priced institutions to give an explanation for why they charge more Longer term, those benefits should leak into more rare and emergency situations. It’s unlikely to be quick - as old people won’t adopt quickly. I’m optimistic, but very well aware that it’s really difficult to implement and everything is set up against encouraging transparency. The government won’t be the institution to push this because 75% of America is against the government knowing this much about their healthcare and being able to do this.
I addressed both of these issues in my first post but I’m willing to admit I’m wrong if you have any studies that show these are real concerns and not fabricated. Rent control doesn’t set the price on new tenants. People aren’t choosing apartment living solely because of rent control. Staying in long term rentals is more of an issue of not being able to afford single family home ownership. In almost every apartment building I’ve lived in the majority was high turnover with some long term residents. For the record I do believe more supply is needed but I don’t know how much rent control stops that.
Rent control usually happens when there are other regulations in place that make building homes/apartments challenging and/or expensive. If you don’t address the underlying issue, that will continue to discourage investment. Consider rent control the signal rather than the cause but then it eventually cuts at the quality of housing because it discourages reinvestment in properties. But additionally, rent control will also impact the long-term model you’re building apartment for profitability. New builds will have freedom to change rent for a period of time but then will be subject to rent control after a period of like 10 years. That creates some uncertainty about future profitability/less flexibility.
reading a few abstracts and it seems it’s not necessarily rent control in and of itself that hinders new construction but other regulations that need to be addressed. Mobility issues, long term tenants etc would also be addressed by dealing with regulations concerning multiple family housing more than getting rid of rent control. I personally think there are some things that shouldn’t be for profit housing, education, health care and jails/prisons being the most obvious.
I added this after posting… Consider rent control the signal rather than the cause but then it eventually cuts at the quality of housing because it discourages reinvestment in properties.
Doctors already have to deal with patients consulting Dr. Google, Joe Rogan, and random Facebook groups. Convincing people that the doctor that saw and examined them may know a little bit more about their exact health needs than people who aren’t doctors and haven’t examined them is already hard enough. Lets make that process even more challenging by introducing whatever biases the guys programming your dream AI have to the mix.
It's almost as though the ethic itself is so completely fucked that it cannot be made unoffensively. You can't articulate dehumanizing ideas "in good faith." And if you're arguing for any alternative healthcare structure that disadvantages the poor, that's precisely what you've done.
But it doesn't disadvantage the poor. Once the government meddling is removed from healthcare poor people can afford it. That's free market 101.
Tell me, in good faith, how removing government intervention from healthcare makes it affordable for everyone.
Forgive me for assuming that the libertarian in the libertarian thread who said this was implying government intervention was a problem. Please tell me what I'm missing.
I can’t think of one thing that becomes more affordable by privatization and making it “for profit”. While I do understand that “in theory” it should but living in America in a capitalist system that isn’t the case.
That isn’t inherently or just directed at government but all 3rd party payors. Health Insurance connected to employers and paid as an employee benefit takes a lot of control out of the hands of the end consumer.
Not the existence of insurance. There are so many problems with how it is purchased and administered. Speaking generally (not about healthcare) you get the best information when consumers can leave quickly (no or low switching costs) because they aren’t happy with the cost or service. But with insurance, for most it’s an employee benefit so individuals aren’t really choosing their insurer and when they do switch it’s usually because they left their job rather than because of the insurance. And then with insurance, there are inherent problems with a lack of transparency on pricing. Obviously emergency is one situation but for most medical care you have time to schedule ahead. Consumers have little visibility or incentive to minimize costs because someone else is paying. For instance, I’ve been at the hospital with our youngest and they administered OTC Tylenol before we left. When I eventually saw the bill it was multiples what it would have cost for us to do it. There are just so many issues without seeing price signals. I don’t think the ownership structure of the hospital inherently changes that so no, I’m not advocating for privatization there as the way it would be fixed.
We're going to remove health insurance as a benefit to make it cheaper then? I'm not following. And obviously I'm not advocating health insurance as a benefit of employment, that's completely barbaric. That's how risk pooling works though. The overall cost is reduced because not everyone uses all of it. It really sounds like you're anti-insurance. I guess I don't see what you're offering as a solution.
Insurance is an easy one because nationalized healthcare is the solution. Even just Medicare for all would be a monumental positive change.
As with everything, government regulation of some type is necessary. Today, the biases of programmers isn’t really a worry. Programmers use the datasets they have available to them, even if they would rather have something different/better. An AI can store an incredible amount of data. Far more than a human. It can be better at recognizing certain illnesses than human doctors. Having said that, how do we know which AI “doctor” is acceptable for use in a real life setting? Open source AI models are important for this reason, but any company can fork a model and introduce its own biases, while still claiming it’s “just a fork of Llama2” or whatever. If history is any indication, these things will be bastardized - there is no doubt about it. And the “free market” will, in this instance, only perpetuate this abuse.
What he’s saying is that employee insurance as an employer provided benefit isn’t great, because you’re shoe-horned into whatever your employer is providing with extremely limited options that might not actually be what you’re looking for. And he’s not wrong. As such. This:
As long as we agree that any human that goes to the hospital deserves to be treated (which we damn well should), private health insurance makes no sense. Those who can’t afford health insurance just don’t buy it. They still get sick though. They still need medical treatment. When they are treated but will never pay, the hospital recoups those costs in the form of higher premiums for those who do pay. That’s still socialism. So let’s just be honest with ourselves.
Why would it have to have a different cost as an employee benefit than individual purchasing it? (Other than the BS of its a pre-tax benefit which screws over people purchasing with post-tax dollars in an open market.)
Again, what is actually lowering the price of healthcare in this solution? The reason people get health insurance through their employer is because their employer covers some of their premiums.
The issue is that larger employers have the greatest say in the matter because they have a higher book of business in relation to it all. Insurance companies are obviously going to cut a better deal when it’s hundreds or thousands of “customers” coming through their door as opposed to you, or I, or anyone wanting to figure out what they personally want. Small business gets extremely fucked in this regard, and the end result is what we currently have.
I’m honestly not sure. Maybe. Perhaps below a certain income limit. Like I said, I’m not a healthcare wonk. I spend like no time looking at this and I don’t have strong opinions. It’s easier to see and diagnose problems than fix them.
Increase the Medicare pay in by companies to help fund vouchers is I imagine the move but it doesn't deal with cost in any way. Except in the magic juju of individuals going to buy their own, Obamacare exchanges type deal.