[dragonwriter]

> I would argue that food escapes its measure of utility because otherwise, we would all be eating only the cheapest and healthiest option all the time

Economic utility is subjective; while it includes health effects, to be sure, it also includes things like the taste and other enjoyment factors. It absolutely is not the case that, were food a perfect example of rational choice, we would only be buying options that cost-effectively optimized healthiness.

> Its true healthcare has less frequency so you cant be a sophisticated consumer: but its more frequent than a car

“Healthcare” is a broad class of different products and services, many of which are far less frequently purchased than autos (if you buy open heart surgery more often than you buy a car, you are way out in a tail of frequency-of-purchase distribution of at least one of those items.)

OTOH, cars are also a market in which purchasers take a number of steps to counteract the low frequency. No one is test driving a variety of different surgerical interventions before choosing one.

[conanbatt]

> Economic utility is subjective; while it includes health effects, to be sure, it also includes things like the taste and other enjoyment factors. It absolutely is not the case that, were food a perfect example of rational choice, we would only be buying options that cost-effectively optimized healthiness.

Sure, I agree completely, but at least nominally the argument that healthcare is unique because its a necessity and it has irrational behaving actors is not qualitatively different than the food market.

> “Healthcare” is a broad class of different products and services, many of which are far less frequently purchased than autos (if you buy open heart surgery more often than you buy a car, you are way out in a tail of frequency-of-purchase distribution of at least one of those items.)

Thats as practical a segregation as saying that the people that buy the same model of a car the same year and with the same gas price tends to be 1 at most, hence almost no car purchases are ever repeated!

> OTOH, cars are also a market in which purchasers take a number of steps to counteract the low frequency. No one is test driving a variety of different surgerical interventions before choosing one.

Not really qualitative differences, just quantitative. Many car purchases are done without test drives (argentina doesnt do test drives often for example).

But again, even if you find some truly unique property of healthcare, which in this debate i don't recognize yet, i dont know how it will show that it should be private but public.

[dragonwriter]

> Sure, I agree completely, but at least nominally the argument that healthcare is unique because its a necessity and it has irrational behaving actors is not qualitatively different than the food market.

“Necessity” wasn't part of the argument, and the argument wasn't really of a qualitative difference so much as them being different degrees of the same issues (food is considerably regulated—even by the same agency involved in much healthcare regulation in the US—for many of the same reasons, though the degree of deviation from ideal market conditions is lesser than for healthcare.)