[adam_arthur]

Most medical care is not urgent. In fact, emergency care is a tiny fraction of all medical spending.

Thus the ability to "shop around" and thus subjectivity of medical care to price competition definitely exists in the majority of cases. If the system were setup to incentivize and support this. But due to lack of price transparency and skin in the game, there is no competitive pressure on pricing in practice.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2013/oct/28/nick-gille...

[three_seagrass]

Your link doesn't support your claim about shopping around.

Most health insured patients can "shop around" in their network, which is a list of pre-negotiated priced providers that the insurance company has approved. Providers that are already vetted to be the lower cost for insurance, created through purchase power. And that's assuming it isn't an HMO, for which there is no shopping around.

There are not enough options for real market competition in healthcare.

[diob]

Just like how we can shop around for our internet here :)

It's wild to me how folks will continue to support the predatory healthcare industry here.

[adam_arthur]

Yes, increasing competition will lead to better results for society, in all markets.

Through competitive pressures which drive down cost and encourage increases in quality.

There is very little competitive pressure in healthcare from the consumer due to the issues already mentioned above

[diob]

You're not wrong that competition helps, but you're being naive if you think healthcare is a market, or that it would not eventually be captured like so much else in the USA.

In fact, I think you'll find most of healthcare has already been captured by private equity, resulting in worse outcomes for the both doctors and patients.

[adam_arthur]

Healthcare is inefficient for many reasons, most of which stem from poor laws/controls, lack of individual incentives, and poor transparency. All of which can be solved trivially via well structured laws without radically overhauling the healthcare system.

Protectionism limiting the number of doctors inflates wages, lack of price transparency removes ability to comparison shop, max out of pocket plans remove incentives to consider cost in care. All of these are easy to solve once they're identified and understood as problems.

When you look at disciplines where pricing is transparent and insurance isn't generally involved, like cosmetics/plastic surgery, the costs are quite cheap. Because it actually acts as a competitive market with incentive for consumers to comparison shop

[diob]

Dang, that must be why everyone flies overseas for hair transplants.

Or maybe. . . maybe you're talking out your ass.

https://us-uk.bookimed.com/article/where-to-get-cheap-plasti...

If you're not going to bother to be right about that, I can't take you seriously saying that our situation is trivial to solve, but that also the solutions that work in other countries won't work here. Call be crazy.

[three_seagrass]

Elective plastic surgery is hardly inexpensive in the U.S., or representative of healthcare in general. I don't know why you're so hung up on price transparency, it simply isn't the silver bullet you think it is for reasons repeated throughout this thread.

[throwaway78987]

Bingo

[adam_arthur]

My comment's point was that it's theoretically possible for healthcare to allow for shopping around, but in practice it's not. Due to lack of price transparency and lack of incentives for consumers to care (max out of pocket)

[diob]

I love how we go to theory instead of looking at other nations where healthcare works, like Australia. American exceptionalism at it's finest.

[adam_arthur]

America didn’t become great by copying Europe. Or Australia.

There are obvious flaws in the healthcare system that are apparent from first principles. No need to blindly copy others.

Removing incentives for people to use the system efficiently leads to poor outcomes in different ways

[diob]

I never said blindly, but I do love that you admit to thinking America is great. What other countries do you think are great?

[adam_arthur]

More people want to move here than anywhere else in the world, enough evidence for me.

[johnthuss]

This is the entire purpose of this legislation. It requires hospitals to publish their prices for these specific “shoppable” services.

The problem with this legislation is that prices at one hospital are only useful in comparison to another hospital’s prices. Since the law doesn’t provide a facility for comparison, even the compliant hospital’s data is nearly useless. There needs to be a centralized database with compatible definitions for each procedure that allows consumers not just to see the prices, but to directly compare them.