Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by killjoywashere 2799 days ago
Are socialized medicine systems less evil?
2 comments

Who do you expect to sell more? A salesperson on commission or a salesperson on salary?
A salaried person still has room for perverse incentives. The wine-ing and dining by drug companies is famous, and not counted on any salary form. It makes no difference.
if it makes no difference tgen you must think that commissioned persons are less susceptible to wining and dining incentives
Yes, the situation described by the OP is ultimately due to those incentives not being kept in check by the customer, as there is little incentive for them to research the care.

A socialized healthcare system is actually truer to a functioning free market than what we currently have. By negotiating prices and treatment ahead of time (albeit collectively), both sides of the transaction have the ability to make informed decisions. Whereas in our current system prices are (at best!) negotiated by a sick person while they're over a barrel, and in most cases not even negotiated just let ride on the roulette wheel of health "insurance".

An open market (transparent, competitive, and payer-indifferent prices) could be even better, especially for more elective less time sensitive procedures like dermatology. But that's a long ways away from how things currently are, and in the opposite direction of how they're moving.