4/24/07 - Michael Cannon on Free Market Health Care (Part 1)

[sschittig]

Medical professionals can concentrate on healing the patient rather than on insurance procedures, malpractice liability, etc.

Free medical services would encourage patients to practice preventive medicine and inquire about problems early when treatment will be light; currently, patients often avoid physicals and other preventive measures because of the costs.

Patients with pre-existing conditions can still get health coverage.

[11mc22]

Free medical services seem like a good idea and it would encourage people to seek more preventive care. However it would also attract freeloaders from getting more care than they need.

economics tells us that if you lower the prices then demand will increase. In case of socialized medicine you are artificially lowering the costs and therefore creating shortages and waiting lines like in Canada.

[sschittig]

The number of uninsured citizens has grown to over 45 million.

Health care has become increasingly unaffordable for businesses and individuals.

We can eliminate wasteful inefficiencies such as duplicate paper work, claim approval, insurance submission, etc.

We can develop a centralized national database which makes diagnosis and treatment easier for doctors.

[11mc22]

Just so you know there is a reply button

45 million uninsured is a myth

about 11 million of the 45 are illegal immigrants

3.5 millions are eligible for Medicaid, medicare and SCHIP

8.4 million are college students who think they are invincible

18 million can afford insurance but doesn't want to

9.4 million are only temporarily uninsured because they have been relying on employer health insurance

Just so you know some categories do overlap

[stayinthecourse2014]

I'm a market approach supporter and I like to have data on hand for these sort of discussions.

Do you, by chance, have the sources for these statistics? If so, I would appreciate a link or simple citation, thank you!

[11mc22]

In a study only about 8 million of the 45 are genuinely uninsured. it seems like a large number but after some reforms here and there should solve the problem.

There is no need for socialized health care.

[11mc22]

Yes eliminating Insurance papers would be good but you are only looking at the symptom of the problem rather than the root cause.

The purpose of insurance is simply to cover you when there is an accident.

Now because of Medicare and Medicaid the prices have gone up. When the prices go up people start using insurance to cover them for services that would not have been so expensive in the first place.

[11mc22]

Which means that people are now getting these insurance companies to pay for services that would normally be paid out of pocket.

This mean even higher prices!

[wwood14]

What do you think of the 'Healthcare For America Now' group..?? They want "free" government healthcare. I always worry when people use the word 'free'. "Free" usually doesn't exist..

[whoo689]

You guys are fucking idiots if you honestly don't believe that a free market can work in healthcare. OF COURSE IT CAN! It works in just about everything else. But all these other markets have been distorted by extreme gov't intervention. So they're not so free anymore. Look at housing. You can google COUNTLESS studies showing that unnecessary and silly regulations boost the costs tremendously. It's not that housing is automatically extremely expensive. Gov't plays a big role.

[sschittig]

the free market is not a 100% perfect system (neither is anything else). The free market caused the economic situation we find ourselves in now and is also responsible for the extremely high medical costs we are seeing.

[11mc22]

"caused the economic situation" - Um,no watch?v=K3xMypfblOI&feature=ch­annel_page "responsible for the extremely" - Care to elaborate? Factors to high costs in health care spending - unnecessary tests because doctors fear people suing them for malpractice- Not exactly because of a free market - people getting too much health care due to subsidies- Government subsidies of course (con't)

[11mc22]

-insurance papers (however this isn't a huge factor because if it is true that the number of insured people are decreasing why is it that GDP percent of health care continues to climb?)

Doctors also have tough times dealing with Medicaid, Medicare because of too much government regulations and low reimbursement from these government programs.

[11mc22]

-FDA and licensing laws which lower the supply of doctors and drugs thus increasing the price of these products.

in the 1960's health care only made up about 5-7% GDP. So the question is why did it start to go up?

The reason is around that time Medicaid and medicare was formed. It was a good idea to the poor and elderly however because they indulged in cheap care, the price of health care for others started to climb.

[11mc22]

Its basic economics really

When you artificially lower the price of a good then demand goes up and you get shortages. For the poor it seemed like they are getting the care they need but in the long run they are now suffering due to shortages.

[sschittig]

Care to explain then why every other industrial nation who provides health care for their citizens are rated higher than our system? Why is it that our country "the best in the world" only has a rating of 37 while most of Europe and Canada and yes even a South American nation beat us?

[11mc22]

I will explain why the WHO rankings are terribly flawed.

they are generally based on these factors

- life expectancy

- fairness in health and financially

- responsiveness

I wish I could give you a link of the WHO paper that links to this but unfortunately youtube system will not allow me

Let me take apart these factors in my other comment.

[11mc22]

Life expectancy is based on many factors such as crime, drug use, fatal accidents, diet, exorcise etc etc.

the reason why US has such low life expectancy can be blamed on mostly obesity and fatal accidents

in fact when fatal accidents are not taken into account then US ranks one of the highest in the world

[sjs587]

Actually these countries are quoted on having longer healthy life expectancies, a seperate catagory from life expectancy. As far as crime and accidents go, those statistics are outliers and therefore not accounted for when compiling this data.

Just so you know.

[11mc22]

Doesn't really matter

there are still other numerous factors that play on life expectancy

[11mc22]

"fairness" does not mean better health care

especially when we are debating whether or not rationing really works.

This also goes back to my other post where government intervention has caused inequality through higher prices.

This has to do with more economics than the quality of health care.

[11mc22]

Third factor is the only factor I think that actually involves health care. This factor is based on how long you wait for care, how well you are being treated, choice and respect for the patient.

And guess what

USA ranks number 1 for that specific factor.

[whoo689]

I'd rather trust someone like Cannon who's studied the issue than some idiot like Paul Krugman or the various newspaper elitists or the Congressmen or bureaucrats who harp on and on all day about healthcare "reform" but have no idea what reform really should entail. They're a bunch of idealists who mistakenly use fallacies as arguments, such as the claim that, JUST BECAUSE all other western nations have UHC, we should adopt it because they're so "smart." Or that you can get a free lunch.

[whoo689]

What the hell do Congressmen and bureaucrats know about fixing healthcare?? EXACTLY! That's why it would be a mistake to give power over to them.

[IPOMonsturd]

look up "free market medice" by Ron Paul. Government caused the healthcare problem, and now we are moving towards more government to fix the problem.

[hapet02]

Healthcare is the single most important issue in the 2008 election. United States is the only Western industrialized nation with out universal healthcare. The private sector is not stable enough for healthcare. Our own health is at stake here. Kucinich is the only canidate who coauthored the HR 676 bill, a bill that was supposed to lead to a more healthier and prosperous America through single-payer, universal healthcare.

[Imonlysleeping9]

The private sector is stable enough for free market healthcare, if we simply attempt it. Our current system isn't exactly based on the individual, it's corporate. That normally wouldn't be a problem but the corporations are selling health care which pays every single dollar, with no shopping around by patients. (continued)

[Imonlysleeping9]

Without monetary thought there is no demand for lower prices, and no incentive for competition which will bring about innovation. Look into HSA's they're MUCH cheaper and protect the individual in the case of an emergency, and the ordinary money would be tax-refunded.

Socialism creates monopolies and care that degrades more and more over time. Free markets improve standars of living for everyone.

RON PAUL!

[NCAgentX]

This is madness. More nonsesnse. Simply require everyone be eligible for Medicare. its a great idea b/c it tackles financing and access simultaneously. I know there those who think its socialized medicine; so what? I dont hear senior citizens complaining. Our systems is plagued with inequities in terms of access outcome quality. You cant apply principles of economics to health. Its about need and not about ability to pay. The market system has failed to control costs, improve access and quality.

[Imonlysleeping9]

It's pretty standard economics. I agree that everyone should be covered but we can't just rush willy-nilly into universal healthcare by completely ignoring the economics of it. I say that because if we DO ignore the economics, then the system will fail even worse.

The market has failed because it's been corrupted by monopolization and a lack of competition to drive down costs and up the quality.

I think socialized care would be fantastic, we just have to be smart about it!

[whoo689]

Actually, the healthcare market worked just fine before the gov't got too damn involved starting in the 1960s. Then they screwed everything up. Look at HMOs! Are those natural products of the market? I don't think SO! Nixon in the early 70s made HMOs a normal thing for employers and employees, when it was a rarity before. People really have a short memory, don't they? They forget who caused this mess and blame the wrong people (e.g. insurance companies).

[whoo689]

If today's private healthcare system is SOO inefficient, how the hell will creating a gov't-controlled monopoly o ver all healthcare in this country POSSIBLY make things better? You forget that it would be IMPOSSIBLE for our gov't to cover 300 million people. It just can't be done. Medicare will be $34 Trillion in the hole. That's how much there is unfunded liabilities over the next several decades.

Sorry, but I'm not giving my healthcare up to some ridiculous gov't bureaucrat.