Tuesday, December 20, 2016

The Best History of How We Got High Medical Prices and Obamacare

This is excellent. It is the best thing I have ever seen about government and healthcare.

It is also great on market prices vs. government rules.

Every American should watch this.

Donald Trump should watch this.



 -RW

4 comments:

  1. Very good, but I thought he would mention the cartelizing of the medical profession via the medical school system and state licensing of doctors. I suppose the effect of those two changes were extremely minor to the later developments.

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    1. Not minor at all IMO. Licensing and drug regulation are two of the lynchpins of medical central planning since they make outside competition illegal.

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    2. The AMA cartel isn't a minor effect for medical students and residents and it does effect patient care and cost. Residency positions in practically all specialties are severely, and artificially, limited by medical education regulation. 100:1 ratios of graduating doctors to available residency positions are not uncommon in some specialties here in the US. Yet there are still severe shortages. Hospitals pay for residents out of a Medicare derived fund. The residents have no alternative but to accept below minimum wage for years through these more politically well connected hospital networks that are allowed to teach residents. Then after a few years doctors are rewarded by going to work for health care "insurance" companies, govt regulators and medical liability insurance companies. Their salaries are a primarily a function of the artificial shortage caused by over regulating the teaching hospitals, high cost of medical malpractice insurance and then last, the steep personal costs they bare to learn and practice their life saving profession.

      Not really surprising it costs so much as a patient to compete for a doctor's time with their real customers.

      Direct patient care models of service are gaining popularity. These will most likely continue to supplant the post-residency choices most doctors have today. However without medical education market liberalization (more medical schools allowed to open, more teaching hospitals and apprenticeships not under the thumb of the state and cartels), there will always be a shortage of one of the key ingredients to affordable care: the doctors themselves.

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  2. Insurance in and of itself doesn't drive up prices. Without all the other government interference, insurance companies would have to compete, yet still make a profit to stay in business. This would adjust the price of insurance as well as the price of the medical procedures covered by the insurance. The current set of so-called insurance policies aren't insurance at all. With insurance, you pay your own way unless an incident is higher than the deductible, then you invoke your insurance contract. If home insurance were like current medical "insurance", I'd pay a copay to have my living room painted.

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