[xenadu02]

Price discovery requires the ability to price some customers out of the market. For serious healthcare (the only kind that costs a lot of money) that means life-long disability or death. There is no such thing as a free market without the ability to set prices for maximal profit (vs maximal coverage).

BY DEFINITION a free market in healthcare MUST kill people (or allow them to die of treatable diseases if you prefer). Period. Full-stop. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200.

A free market means if you are unlucky and born into a poor family, get bonked in the head, and have a retinal detachment then you should go blind. Despite the massive dead-weight economic loss to our society of converting an able-bodied person into one with a life-long disability, if you can't pay for retinal re-attachment then fuck you buddy.

I wish all your free-market healthcare proponents would address this fundamental inescapable fact. I suspect most don't because the idea is repugnant and the argument falls apart. Please don't bring out the charity canard. That's largely how our system functioned in the past (and still does for some people thanks to states refusing Medicaid expansion) and it simply doesn't work.

I don't want to live in a society that so prizes the god of free markets that it is willing to let people suffer and die of completely treatable diseases. I'm happy to seize as much money as required from whoever is required to make non-elective healthcare free for all citizens. Fortunately a minor tax on the top 10% along with a larger tax on the 0.1% is more than enough to cover healthcare. As a member of the top 10% I say that knowing I will pay higher taxes.

[MarkMc]

> BY DEFINITION a free market in healthcare MUST kill people

I'm not sure this is true. Does a free market in food require that some people starve to death? Right-wing ideology says that even the poor have enough to buy food, clothing, shelter and medical insurance. If a poor person buys a mobile phone instead of health insurance, it's because they value the phone more than their health - why should you force someone to buy something that is less valuable?

Perhaps you argue that the poor don't have enough money to buy health insurance. In that case the right-wing answer is to give the poor money with which to buy whatever they prefer. Hypotheically everyone could buy health insurance and noone would die of treatable diseases.

[taylodl]

Please cut it out with pretending the poor prefer to buy a cellphone instead of health care. The most expensive phone on the market, the iPhone, costs less than one month of health insurance premiums. And most poor people aren't using iPhones - most are using Androids they bought for a few bucks on a plan. That is to say, a modern smartphone costs the same as a landline phone of yore. That's not even getting into the whole discussion of their smartphone is typically the only computer they have. Try navigating our healthcare system without a phone or a computer. Good luck with that.

[MarkMc]

Actually I'm not pretending anything - I'm just stating the right-wing, free-market ideology. I happen to support a single-payer healthcare model because it will reduce overall health costs and maximise long-term GDP. But let me play devils advocate for a minute and respond your your comment about smartphones:

Nobody is claiming that a smartphone would pay the full cost of a persons healthcare. But it would pay for some health insurance - perhaps two or three weeks, by your count. (And don't confuse this with internet access: A 5-year-old smartphone with a cracked screen costs next to nothing on eBay). Therefore anyone who buys a brand new phone - either outright or on a contract - has given up the opportunity to buy a few weeks of health insurance.

And there are many other similar opportunities for poor people, including:

- If you buy branded goods like Nike or Adidas, buy non-branded clothes and shoes instead

- If you drink or smoke, stop

- If you are overweight or obese, eat less

- If you buy food from convenience stores or restaurants, stop. Instead, make a weekly trip to Costco or Walmart and buy food in bulk.

- Change your diet to the cheapest foods that still provide nutrition. For example, maybe potatoes are cheaper than bread and just as healthy. Don't like potatoes? Too bad.

- Typically the best-paid jobs are in a city or town center, while cheapest accommodation is far away. So if your total weekly commute and work time is less than 60 hours per week, live further away from your job to increase your commute time and decrease your rent or mortgage payments.

- Look up the top 5 cities in the US with the highest wages and lowest unemployment, then move to one of them.

- If there are less than 2 people per bedroom in your household, take in a paying lodger. If your landlord doesn't allow it, move. If you are a single person then move into a 3-bedroom house with 5 other single people.

You may think that these opportunities are not valid, or that they still would not pay the full cost of health insurance. In that case the right-wing solution is to give money to poor people - and not to force them to buy health insurance or provide government-run healthcare.

[cmurf]

Well strictly speaking the free market would say "you're on your own, you're not our problem". And then you'd hopefully look cute, and do some neat tricks to get a benefactor to voluntarily help you pay for your needs. Otherwise, sorry, the needs of the many outweigh, you.

The reality is, the only thing that makes for-profit free market people alter their perspective, is if they or someone they care about gets really sick and is subject to the bad aspects of the for-profit system. It's like anti-gay uncle who finally starts to moderate once he learns he has a gay nephew. Oh really, hmm, guess I need to moderate my total ignorance of the complexity of the world and things aren't so simple afterall.

I attribute this to lack of imagination identifying with other people. People confuse that with feeling sorry for others, or pity. John Rawls "veil of ignorance" thought experiment should be a political test. If you aren't willing to imagine yourself or a family member directly subject to the deleterious side effects of policies you want made into law, you're incompetent. Instead of having "regular Joe Bob" as politicians, they should be professional, interdisciplinary, ethical, and be auditable.