Nice, a down-vote without addressing the content and the reference to support said content. But hey, what do actual economists know about markets and monopolies.
Haha, down-vote to that one too. Feel free to address the original criticism, I'm waiting to have an actual debate instead of an naive emotion fueled down-vote fest.
Got it, you're admitting you were wrong through your actions. Thank you for that, it's refreshing to see people that are willing to accept a different viewpoint and adjust their own beliefs when new information is provided.
I upvoted your first comment and downvoted the next 3. It’s not a question of what your saying, but how your saying it. Try actually reading though the guidelines and thinking about what makes a comment worth reading. Ex: Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
I didn't downmod your original comment; even had I wanted to, I couldn't as it was a reply to my own (same applies to your reply to that one). You really can't believe that more than one person disagrees with you? I did downmod the second two because they were snarky and rude; someone not replying instantly is not an indication of abandoning debate. It's not as though there's a notification system on HN, and people sometimes get busy.
With respect to your natural monopoly argument, they typically occur when there are very high start-up costs. There are other cases where economies of scale are significant, but very few where they are infinite. Even Amazon, a company that occupies much of the e-commerce market and is well known for its highly-efficient supply chain, is having trouble maintaining them indefinitely. I think we're in violent agreement that the high start-up costs of medical practices and hospitals prevent competition, and I was advocating for removing most of the regulation on the medical field. Another example: the AMA is a horrible gov't-sanctioned monopoly that hugely increases medical costs; most procedures can be done by someone with a few months' training (see the military). Healthcare is one of the few industries that hasn't mastered "mass production" of procedures in spite of the fact that many surgeries are similar.
> healthcare is a natural monopoly due to the fact that a significant portion of the population cannot "shop around"
Except that doesn't mean there is a natural monopoly. If there are a dozen hospitals and you get in an ambulance you'll get rushed to the nearest one that has the right doctors (most major hospitals have most urgent stuff covered). While consumer choice is probably reduced here, it's not as though the ambulances all take patients to a certain place.
The point I think you were getting at is that most people have limited choice because they are often treated in time-sensitive situations. However, about two percent of healthcare spending is on such emergency care [0]. Most procedures give people at least some time to find options, get second opinions, etc.
Natural monopolies (aside from those caused by regulation) are caused by lower long-run average total costs than someone else, industries where economies of scale are nearly infinite. Even those that can't be "disrupted" by building a competitor that sells the same product can be supplanted by newer technology. For instance, many people and companies are exploring setting up solar-powered, battery-backed microgrids that would create serious competition with the government-sanctioned monopolistic utilities. In other words, while high start-up costs will certainly delay competition, they won't prevent it.
> I'll file this one away to remember in the future.
First, thank you for responding and second don't take my idiotic self-amusement with the downvote/upvote nonsense as anything other than my own failure in that moment.
> Care to elaborate?
This was in response to the comment by Retric calling out my idiot behavior. Which, I agreed with.
> Another example: the AMA is a horrible gov't-sanctioned monopoly that hugely increases medical costs; most procedures can be done by someone with a few months' training (see the military). Healthcare is one of the few industries that hasn't mastered "mass production" of procedures in spite of the fact that many surgeries are similar.
Very good point. Reducing costs through other measures definitely are a valid approach. This is one I agree with.
>The point I think you were getting at is that most people have limited choice because they are often treated in time-sensitive situations. However, about two percent of healthcare spending is on such emergency care [0]. Most procedures give people at least some time to find options, get second opinions, etc.
This is true in part. However, mobility and access are often very limited to a significant portion of the population due to ability to travel, lack of time to take off work to travel, as well as the type of insurance a person has. If our society was more inclined to provide the ability for people who financially would struggle if they took a day let alone multiple days off of work to shop around to reduce medical costs this would make sense. But that is not the society we live in.
> mobility and access are often very limited to a significant portion of the population due to ability to travel, lack of time to take off work to travel, as well as the type of insurance a person has.
True enough. I do think allowing a market to develop will give us the tools to shop around with less hassle, e.g. online ratings and comparison based on hard data people will have to disclose to compete in a free market. Similar with transportation, changes in the way we get around will change this and make life a lot easier, hopefully.