[cteague]

Every market has information asymmetry. Software is probably the biggest one today. Yet software keeps getting better and better...

I agree there are needs for regulations--more like proper norms though and a good tort system.

[hannasanarion]

No it doesn't. You can negotiate the price of software before you buy it, and you can shop around and choose between alternatives, or choose not to buy at all.

If you need a piece of rebar removed from your chest, then you need a piece of rebar removed from your chest. The price doesn't matter, the choice of provider doesn't matter. The "consumer" is completely at the whim of whatever provider happens to be closest. That's not how free markets are supposed to work.

[dsfyu404ed]

There's plenty of industries where the customer often needs something done quickly or in an emergency and they still don't get screwed like they do in medical. Plumbers, septic pumping, auto repair, all have a substantial portion of their customers needing "emergency" services that they could charge whatever they want for. They don't though because there's price transparency and if you get screwed you'll never call them again and tell all your friends they ripped you off.

With medical there's no way to know when you got ripped off because prices vary wildly for the same services and there's no price transparency.

If I broke my leg doing something stupid you can bet your ass I'd call around and get quotes if I could. It only takes ~10min, far less than the EMT response time where I live. The problem is I can't even get quotes.

Sometimes you have no options and you get screwed but the vast majority of medical care is not people who will bleed out if they don't go to the nearest hospital ASAP. If normal services didn't cost an arm and a leg and you could reasonably shop around then healthcare and therefore health insurance wouldn't cost nearly as much because the lions share of services would be priced competitively.

Furthermore, price transparency is not incompatible with any other approach to healthcare since that information necessarily needs to exist.

[dragonwriter]

> If I broke my leg doing something stupid you can bet your ass I'd call around and get quotes if I could.

Quotes for...what? Even with price transparency on actual services, “I broke my leg” doesn't tell you with much specificity what services you need. And that's not even to discuss, “I'm having chest pain and dizziness”.

[dsfyu404ed]

>Quotes for...what? Even with price transparency on actual services, “I broke my leg” doesn't tell you with much specificity what services you need. And that's not even to discuss, “I'm having chest pain and dizziness”.

Sounds a lot like "my car is making a funny noise" or "my septic is backed up". Diagnosis should be cheap/free depending on how involved it is and then you get a quote for how much it will cost to fix and the quote usually includes some language like "and if X happens we'll stop work and call you/charge X to fix it as well".

Figuring out what work needs to be done based on vague descriptions by people who don't know the subject matter is what professionals do. I don't see why doctors should be held to a lower standard.

[kingaillas]

And that's why seeing a doctor often involves a battery of seemingly unrelated tests - diagnosis can be difficult and involved.

The fact is "my car is making a funny noise" or "my septic is backed up" are not life threatening situations; they are inconveniences with ready substitutes available. Health care is not a free market like car mechanics and plumbing are.

[cteague]

You're engaging in 'all-or-nothing' thinking. The vast majority of medical expenses are not like that. And that's the whole point of insurance--to be covered in case something happens so you don't have to negotiate on the spot.

That's like saying we should socialize food distribution because people can't negotiate when they're starving.

[hannasanarion]

Sure, I chose an extreme example, but it's just a fact that healthcare is way less elastic than food.

If the price of beef is too high, I can buy pork instead.

If the price of a hip replacement is too high, what are you supposed to do? Get an appendectomy instead?

[cteague]

Demand is inelastic? Meh, my brother is living in Brazil and has been using a ton of private healthcare services because it's cheaper. Again, you're engaging in all or nothing thinking. As the price of LASIK goes down, more and more people use it. Americans go to the doctor less because it's more expensive. Healthcare demand is the furthest thing from an 'inelastic'.

Healthcare is bigger than just things that you absolutely need. Obviously, there are those things, but that's what INSURANCE is for. Then, when you are healthy, you can shop around and when insurance is too expensive and has too many items you don't need, you can instead get a barebones plan which would cover the things that you seem to be worried most about.

If a person failed to get insurance, well... that's not good. We shouldn't encourage that as a society. If someone runs out of resources and has to demand it from others, they are a burden and that is bad. If too many people do that, society collapses.

Obviously, there are going to be those people and I'm not saying we shouldn't care for them, but the more we have a socialized system--one that has a shared resource pool everyone takes from--the less efficient it will be because the incentives applying to individual encourage them to use as many resources as possible because they aren't the ones who bear the cost.