Pins Blame for Soaring Costs on Private Health Care Spending
enjoy
I’d be glad to see rebuttals; he sounds convincing.
I only skimmed the beginning, but it is true that the incentive structure of the private system in America has been warped so much by regulation and guilds (medical associations) that their practices aren’t even close to what a free market would achieve.
Here is a good article on the history of health care in America. http://mises.org/daily/4276
Medicare, I suppose, is a government-run program? If so, it’s not surprising that expenditures could remain stable for such a long time, as it is up to a government’s discretion how much money it wishes to spend on this specific program. The market pricing mechanism does not have the immediate influence on a state-run program that it would have on a market-based health care operation. But even though government can put a lid on costs, it cannot automatically retain the same quality of service at the same time. The real question here is: how much better have privately financed health care enterprises served the paying public than the “cheap and sustainable” government plan?
So sectors of the health care market not controlled by state pricing, but by heavy state regulation experience a cost explosion. Artificially reduced supply and real demand at work. Government-run operations create waiting lists while keeping prices low. What’s the argument here?
Again, this proves nothing. A government could set expenditures on health care at 0,00001% of GDP. Unless you include quality and quantity of the services offered in your international comparison, you won’t get any useful results.
Have the baby boomer generations retired yet? How much of the real increase is automatically capped at the expense of quality and quantity of treatment?
Well done Sphairon, TY.
This is a good video http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6097004365489271433#
“Since 1975, Medicare spending – hospitals and doctors’ services – has remained remarkably stable at between 4% and 5% of our Gross Domestic Product,” said Dr. Evans. “The key cost drivers in health care are the private, for-profit parts – pharmaceuticals, for-profit diagnostic tests, dental and other non-insured services. For example, private drug plan costs are rising 15% a year.”
This is a sneaky sleight of hand as he is comparing apples to oranges. First he compares Medicare spending as a percentage of GDP; however, then he compares private drug plan increases not to GDP, but to themselves. I wonder if he compared Medicare increases as a percent increase to prior Medicare spending what the result would be. Likewise, how about we compare private drug plans to GDP for an accurate representation.
Prime, you nailed him dead to rights. Another rebuttal of what’s turning out to be plain ole lying.
Here is le graph rèlevant.
!(http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Images/Chart Maps/Chartcart/Report/Enhancing Value Improve the Program/G/Growth in Medicare Expenditures 1970 2015/Slide Image.gif)
So from 1975 to 2005, expenditures increase 2000%. This is equivalent to a 10%/year growth rate. What a douche.
As a trained pharmacist let me explain how we control Medicare prescription costs (Medicare Part D) in the United States. It’s known as the “Donut Hole,” you may have heard of it. It boils down to this–a patient gets prescription drug coverage up to a set dollar amount, somewhere around $2500 last time I checked. Then, once they reach that threshold, they lose coverage for another $2500. If they happen to exceed $5000 a year, their coverage kicks back in.
Now a real life example: A patient comes into my pharmacy last year to buy insulin–copay $40. The very next month she gets the same prescription, but this time she’s in the donut hole-- cost $600. She actually bought it, but most do not. Some change their prescription completely, others just go without. Does it help control costs, I suppose it does. Is it good quality care, absolutely not.
Why don’t we go on to say that inflation is beneficial, because it might not lead to rise in prices in the short-term?
People resist rise in prices less when it comes in the form of decrease in quality.
Price per quantity is measurable. Price per quality is not. When the quality falls and price remains same or slightly higher, do you use this to argue that you are paying less for what you get?
Are we going to say that United States should be like United Kingdom where hospital beds are dirty and unsanitized, where illnesses from other patients can be caught, where there are less mops and more memos, and where there are long waiting lists never seen in American hospitals? Can we just look at the cost that goes out of a man’s pocket, but ignore the cost that comes out from a worsened illness from a hospital?
That’s just covering the price for the customer. What about the cost behind the service? What about the cost per customer borne by all parties? Well, there is no such thing as an average cost for a joint product. A hospital is not just one service, but many. These range from the sanitation of the place, the reception of customer applications and the speed of meeting them, the diagnosis given by the doctor, the advice given by the doctor, the various machinery available, the comfort of the room you get, and so on. You can’t jointly calculate how much of each service a customer uses. On top of which, the joint product offerred in British public hospitals and the joint product offerred in American private hospitals are different. Are we still comparing?
Should we ordinary people approach the social sciences looking at arbitrary mathematics and statistics that explain nothing of flesh-and-blood human beings? Why do you think nobody from Mises to Rothbard to Rockwell really believed in mathematics and statistics, and stayed out of the game of all the Samuelsonians, monetarists, neoclassicals, and others who just spammed charts, statistics, and diagrams at each other, so that each could get away with correctly proving their foregone conclusions? Why not stick to logic, reason, and principles (like all traditional social philosophers), going with actual flesh-and-blood situations in real government hospitals as a starting point?