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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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 Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2009 7:19 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| My biggest complaint is that I paid into Blue Cross/Blue Shield for 20 years and never collected a dime from it. When I finally go back home I'll be uninsured and not given any credit for those 20 years of contributions. |
Your complaint is regarding the lack of portability. You are whining because your socialist income tax system has prevented the creation of "whole-life" health insurance, which the free market wants to offer, but the fascist-socialist government prevents.
Poor Yata:
The reason you cannot have what you want is that you support the people who have taken it away from you. |
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blade
Joined: 30 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2009 4:42 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
It is the state and regulation that has made HC so expensive. 16% of GDP isno joke. Cato et al do have good ideas to bring to the table.
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Tell that to the Germans mises. |
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canuckistan
Mod Team
Joined: 17 Jun 2003
Location: Training future GS competitors.....
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 12:36 am Post subject: |
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No, its not the legal community driving up the cost of health care.
Edit: Re-read the article. We're in agreement.
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| "The insurance company does not want to explain how they set their premiums, so they divert public attention and blame it all on people who are injured and their lawyers," says Claybrook. |
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Pluto
Joined: 19 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 7:16 pm Post subject: |
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The reason I posted that post before is because the Obama Admin and many members of Congress don�t want to hear what Cato et al have to say. Not 1st, not 2nd, not even 3rd, they are being completely shut off from the debate. Of course Republicans don�t seem to helping matters much either. I suppose we could speculate as to why not, but if I were to guess it would be due to the spectre of socialized medicine. This is not to say medicine is 100% completely socialized, but it�s certainly not 100% privatized. It�s best to look at it at as a continuum between free market and socialization. Socialization being defined as the amount of control government has control over the means of production within the medical industry. For example, many hospitals are privately owned, but how much control do the hospital owners have over their facilities? We would argue that 1. Health care costs are high due to government and 2. More entrepreneurship is desirable.
Government makes health care more expensive:
1. The FDA does actual little drug testing but, they do make it hard and expensive for a drug or pharmaceutical to be cleared for market. Costs are on average about $400m and wait times can take as many as ten years. The FDA bureaucrats will review all data and information which is measured in linear feet as opposed to pages. The opportunity costs from such processes are tremendous. Not just patients waiting for the next �blockbuster� drug to come to market, but there are many drugs that don�t even make it past conception due to the FDA.
2. Medicare and Medicaid are HUGE players in the market. In fact, they've practically got a monopsony in the pharma market. Such a scenario might seem desirable to those who like government, but consider all of the paperwork, incompetence and waiting involved. A free and competitive insurance industry will definitely drive down all costs. You should also consider that if The gov't negotiates too low a price then many entrepreneurs will leave the market leaving many patients with less options.
3. Government guaranteed universal health care is impossible and health care rationing will be inevitable. Britain�s got a NICE bureaucracy to deal with such rationing issues. If the treatment is deemed too costly, you don�t get it and you suffer.
The free market has a solution with health status insurance. John H. Cochrane, an economist with the University of Chicago has discovered health-status insurance. Health status insurance is a two tiered insurance program. The first covers your annual health care costs less any deductibles and the second tier shields you from �pre-existing conditions.� As in all free markets, costs go down, quality is improved with the added bonus of expanded health care. The good news is that the free market side of the equation is telling this us right now, government just needs to follow what the market is saying by creating the proper regulatory and legal framework for this market to evolve. Government should start by allowing interstate trade of insurance. For example, a person in NJ should be able to buy insurance in Kansas. Secondly, government should spell out clear and easily understandable rules for contract to prevent fraud.
Insurance companies will have an effect on pharmaceutical prices. Intense competition will cause them to look for ways to cut costs which means leveraging their relationships with hospitals and drug companies. Over time, the two tier cost system will be consolidated. it won�t matter if you get divorced or come down with a terrible disease like cancer; you�ll always be covered.
Health-Status Insurance: Whole thing here.
Last edited by Pluto on Fri Mar 13, 2009 3:19 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 6:13 am Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| Does anybody know how the ROK's system works? I remember when I got my first of many colds in Seoul I went to the dr. and had a 3,000won co-pay. But one of my students at a uni said that her grandma (who was ill) wanted to die to release the family from the fiscal burden of caring for her. Those two things always seemed contradictory to me. Or was my employee provided health care really good? |
People in the ROK can buy supplemental private insurance, even though the vast majority don't. The state insurance covers you only up to a certain amount, one which is totally inadequate for people with terminal illnesses or who have catastrophic accidents. That's why Bill Kapoun's family had to pay such large out-of-pocket costs even for just the few weeks that he survived. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 8:07 pm Post subject: |
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An interesting statistic:
"The Urban Institute reports that private insurers spend up to 30 percent of their revenue on administrative costs (read: salaries, paperwork, etc.) while government programs spend just 5 percent, and polls show Medicare recipients are far more satisfied with their healthcare than those in the private system. But, in nonetheless claiming that the private sector will always outperform the government, Republicans at least presented an ideologically coherent (if fantastically inaccurate) hypothesis."
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/03/14/sirota/ |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 4:56 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
An interesting statistic:
"The Urban Institute reports that private insurers spend up to 30 percent of their revenue on administrative costs (read: salaries, paperwork, etc.) while government programs spend just 5 percent, and polls show Medicare recipients are far more satisfied with their healthcare than those in the private system. But, in nonetheless claiming that the private sector will always outperform the government, Republicans at least presented an ideologically coherent (if fantastically inaccurate) hypothesis."
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/03/14/sirota/ |
Unfortunately, "studies" like those of the Urban Institute are just propaganda and lies being presented in the format of a study.
We only have to look as far as revenues.
The private insurance company has to collect revenues. To do so requires paperwork and costs.
The government revenue collection process is not included as a cost on the government side. It does, however, cost more than 5% for the government to collect its revenues.
So, the Urban Institute's study is already proven a lie before you even open up to the details.
So it goes for Ponzi economists.
They tell lies and fools believe them and parade them around, befuddled and bewildered when things don't work out. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 10:05 am Post subject: |
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| Pluto wrote: |
Government makes health care more expensive:
1. The FDA does actual little drug testing but, they do make it hard and expensive for a drug or pharmaceutical to be cleared for market. Costs are on average about $400m and wait times can take as many as ten years. The FDA bureaucrats will review all data and information which is measured in linear feet as opposed to pages. The opportunity costs from such processes are tremendous. Not just patients waiting for the next �blockbuster� drug to come to market, but there are many drugs that don�t even make it past conception due to the FDA. |
In the US, the private sector has to pay for testing and trials. In the EU the gov't pays for it. Why do you think it is? 
| Quote: |
| 2. Medicare and Medicaid are HUGE players in the market. In fact, they've practically got a monopsony in the pharma market. Such a scenario might seem desirable to those who like government, but consider all of the paperwork, incompetence and waiting involved. A free and competitive insurance industry will definitely drive down all costs. You should also consider that if The gov't negotiates too low a price then many entrepreneurs will leave the market leaving many patients with less options. |
And the pharma companies got a huge boon through the prescription bill passed during the bush administration. It was written by an industry lobbyist for goodness sakes. Basically it is a corporate subsidy.
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| 3. Government guaranteed universal health care is impossible and health care rationing will be inevitable. Britain�s got a NICE bureaucracy to deal with such rationing issues. If the treatment is deemed too costly, you don�t get it and you suffer. |
I would take the UK and canada's system over ours any day.
I should note that a free market health care system might work but it will never happen in the US. the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies have too many resources to keep their interests protected. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 1:23 pm Post subject: |
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| the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies have too many resources to keep their interests protected. |
That will be one of the major challenges to solve in any reform. |
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Pluto
Joined: 19 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2009 10:10 am Post subject: |
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[quote="bucheon bum"]
| Pluto wrote: |
Government makes health care more expensive:
1. The FDA does actual little drug testing but, they do make it hard and expensive for a drug or pharmaceutical to be cleared for market. Costs are on average about $400m and wait times can take as many as ten years. The FDA bureaucrats will review all data and information which is measured in linear feet as opposed to pages. The opportunity costs from such processes are tremendous. Not just patients waiting for the next �blockbuster� drug to come to market, but there are many drugs that don�t even make it past conception due to the FDA. |
In the US, the private sector has to pay for testing and trials. In the EU the gov't pays for it. Why do you think it is?
The governments of the EU have much more control over the means of production in the medical industry so this is hardly surprising. Anyway, I'd much rather prefer private capital investing thousands, per haps millions, of different products every year. With the free market you get variety, with government you get bureaucratic morass.
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And the pharma companies got a huge boon through the prescription bill passed during the bush administration. It was written by an industry lobbyist for goodness sakes. Basically it is a corporate subsidy.
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This is correct and why the republicans didn't help matters. Anyways, Medicare D, and the ugly corporatism that came with it, was mostly a bipartisan effort.
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I would take the UK and canada's system over ours any day.
I should note that a free market health care system might work but it will never happen in the US. the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies have too many resources to keep their interests protected. |
Nor do I think a pure socialist medical program will work in the US ala Sweden. For one the US is 60 times larger and for central planners to figure out the needs of 300m individuals will be impossible. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2009 1:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Pluto wrote: |
In the US, the private sector has to pay for testing and trials. In the EU the gov't pays for it. Why do you think it is?
The governments of the EU have much more control over the means of production in the medical industry so this is hardly surprising. Anyway, I'd much rather prefer private capital investing thousands, per haps millions, of different products every year. With the free market you get variety, with government you get bureaucratic morass. |
Except the costs of developing and testing new drugs is enormous. The free market doesn't necessarily work. Just look at the small # of pharma companies. It is an oligopoly. And the reason the private sector has to paying for those tests and trials is because the pharma industry wanted to keep out new competitors.
And ontheway, theory only goes so far. My father worked in the health care insurance business for 3 decades. When he started, nearly all health care insurance providers were non-profits. Their costs were below the one that Ya-ta boy provided (it was under 5%).
So what happened? A smart man running one of the blue crosses or blue shields found out how to turn the company from a non-profit into a for-profit. Obviously a company that has such low costs is enormously profitable. Big surprise that he and his executive team profited from this. Big surprise that more management felt the need to get a piece of the action. Costs grew, margins shrank. By the time my father left BC in the late 70s, costs had gone up to about 10%.
And of course other BC/BS managers in other states saw this and copied the process. Today's mess partly stems from this.
Point being, personal greed sometimes gets in the way of the market. Short-term gains are made at the sacrifice of the long-term. Just look at the current mess. I know you blame politicians and the financial system ontheway, but a lot of it stems from pure greed across the board. |
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Pluto
Joined: 19 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 8:50 pm Post subject: |
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| Milton Friedman on greed. 'Greed' and 'exploitation' are not relegated to only free market capitalism. Indeed, in my opinion, they will become worse under a more socialistic construct. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 12:40 am Post subject: |
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Pluto, I didn't mean to imply that was the case. My point was merely that theory only takes you so far. Humans then take it and distort it for their own individual purposes.  The goal is to obviously minimize those distortions. Some sort of rules/guidelines have to be made. Even Adam Smith believed in that. |
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