Why is healthcare prohibitively expensive in the US?

[James972]

No, I don't know what you mean. As long as we are going to force everyone to help pay the medical costs as well as the insurance costs of healthcare, including all pre-existing conditions, all illegal immigrants, all poor people who already know they don't have to pay medical bills, and so forth, the costs will always be prohibitive.

dear, under Republican capitalism there is competition for customers who are spending their own money. Do you understand?

 

[James972]

Capitalism has already compromised with socialism in almost every country in the world. Nothing is black or white.

it cant intellectually compromise!! Obviously capitalism is not socialism. A compromise yields a mixture of the two.

 

[marke]

dear, under Republican capitalism there is competition for customers who are spending their own money. Do you understand?

Yes, there is competition in capitalist scenarios among healthcare providers seeking paying customers, but universal healthcare and government guarantees to cover the healthcare needs of everyone, including illegal immigrants, are not capitalist scenarios and they are very expensive to society.

 

[Noodlegawd]

I don't have an opinion on admission rates for medical schools, but drug approval is necessary, and arguably too easy as is. It's simply too easy for manufacturers to get drugs that are dangerous and/or unhelpful approved (e.g. SSRIs).

The best solution for high medical costs would likely be direct limits on drug prices.

There are limits on drug prices -- it's called competition in the generic market. If you don't like the price of new on-patent drugs, then stick with the ones that are off-patent or that otherwise have a generic. It's not like pharma companies are unduly profitable.

 

[James972]

Yes, there is competition in capitalist scenarios among healthcare providers seeking paying customers, but universal healthcare and government guarantees to cover the healthcare needs of everyone, including illegal immigrants, are not capitalist scenarios and they are very expensive to society.

and so the solution is to switch to Republican capitalism-right?????

 

[James972]

There are limits on drug prices -- it's called competition in the generic market. If you don't like the price of new on-patent drugs, then stick with the ones that are off-patent or that otherwise have a generic. It's not like pharma companies are unduly profitable.

well bureaucratic govt is so heavily involved that even off patent drugs can cost a fortune. The Epi Pen was a good example. $600 for $1 worth of drugs. GOvt made entry so high that there was no Republican capitalist competition.

 

[marke]

and so the solution is to switch to Republican capitalism-right?????

The solution is to abandon all thoughts that the government can pay bills people cannot afford to pay for themselves.

 

[James972]

The solution is to abandon all thoughts that the government can pay bills people cannot afford to pay for themselves.

but it does pay a lot of bills people cant pay themselves. Its called redistribution. And????

 

[marke]

but it does pay a lot of bills people cant pay themselves. Its called redistribution. And????

The US government has spent itself into unsustainable debt attempting to provide too much free stuff to too many people when it cannot afford to.

 

[James972]

The US government has spent itself into unsustainable debt attempting to provide too much free stuff to too many people when it cannot afford to.

time to face reality. Conservatives have been saying that for decades and it has never been true so far.

 

[marke]

time to face reality. Conservatives have been saying that for decades and it has never been true so far.

Stick around, the truth will make itself known in spite of all the denials of the ignorant and deceived.

 

[James972]

Stick around, the truth will make itself known in spite of all the denials of the ignorant and deceived.

stick around for another 200 years?

 

[marke]

stick around for another 200 years?

Do you think democrats can keep milking this Russian collusion conspiracy theory lie for 200 more years? It does seem to have already taken an eternity for them to get to the bottom of what really happened here and we are not seeing any indication they are any closer to discovering the truth now than they were 3 years ago.

 

[James972]

Do you think democrats can keep milking this Russian collusion conspiracy theory lie for 200 more years?

Trump will be gone in a 1-5 years so it will die soon enough. Its hardly the 200 years time frame some have been whining about debt and deficits

 

[Manc Skipper]

Do you think democrats can keep milking this Russian collusion conspiracy theory lie for 200 more years? It does seem to have already taken an eternity for them to get to the bottom of what really happened here and we are not seeing any indication they are any closer to discovering the truth now than they were 3 years ago.

It's not a theory, it's a real conspiracy, they just managed to destroy enough of the evidence. See the Mueller report. The FBI report that Russia has penetrated the voting systems of every state, yet McConnell, Trump, and the GOP seem unconcerned by this. Why would that be?

Still, healthcare is becoming unreachable for the American masses.

 

[marke]

It's not a theory, it's a real conspiracy, they just managed to destroy enough of the evidence. See the Mueller report. The FBI report that Russia has penetrated the voting systems of every state, yet McConnell, Trump, and the GOP seem unconcerned by this. Why would that be?

Still, healthcare is becoming unreachable for the American masses.

You claim the Russians have penetrated American voting systems. What is your evidence, specifically? Do you know how they supposedly did it or just that somebody told you they did but did not tell you exactly in what way, specifically?

 

[James972]

See the Mueller report.

We saw it!! 3 years, $25 million, threatening everyone with prison, and yet no finding to prosecute let alone the chance to prosecute and win in court. THe real finding was the deep state conspiracy to depose a sitting American president, perhaps the most serious crime in US history.

 

[James972]

Still, healthcare is becoming unreachable for the American masses.

goofy liberal insanity more insured than ever before!!

 

[imagep]

goofy liberal insanity more insured than ever before!!

Obamacare worked well didn't it.

 

[James972]

Obamacare worked well didn't it.

socialism does not work, it just killed 120 million. 1+1=2

 

[James972]

You claim the Russians have penetrated American voting systems.

if they did it is to a trivial amount compared to way liberal deep state tried to subvert voting systems and bring down a US president.

 

[Drawdown]

As you may know, the costs of healthcare are going up faster than GDP. Healthcare in the US is getting rather expensive these days.

Supporters of universal healthcare typically say that since healthcare is a basic necessity, prices do not affect demand because without it, people will die. The economic term for how much demand changes relative to price is price elasticity. To their credit, healthcare is an inelastic good (demand changes more slowly than price), but on the other hand, it isn't the only one.

Other examples of inelastic goods are gasoline, clothing, recreational drugs (including tobacco), and to some extent, food and water. And yet, we don't see companies price gouge on gasoline, clothing, food, or water. Now maybe one could make the case that water utilities are heavily regulated or are owned by municipal governments and most recreational drugs are illegal but what about the others?

Although the cost of food has gone up in the last generation or so, it didn't do so by nearly as much as healthcare. When food (or drinks) get close to expiration date, they go on sale. In fact, sometimes when they're not close to expiration date, they go on sale. Clothing likewise is not being price gouged.

Oil is considered an inelastic good because it's necessary to power our cars. Sure, electric cars exist, but the market is only in its infancy. But despite the importance of oil, prices aren't constantly on the rise, even with growing demand. Rather, they fluctuate, even though most oil reserves are in OPEC countries.

So why don't the markets of other inelastic markets see a great amount of price gouging? The answer is competition. If Safeway charges too much for groceries, shoppers will simply look elsewhere. If one gas station charges too much for gasoline, people will go to other gas stations. The markets for clothing likewise don't price gouge because there is competition. Thes markets are inelastic, if the price rises by a lot, there will still be a great deal of demand for them. An inelastic market will be able to maintain fairly small prices so long as there is competition. Thus it is worth asking why we don't see the same in healthcare.

It would perhaps be fallacious to say that healthcare in the US is expensive purely because of the free market because it is one of the most heavily regulated sectors in the US economy.

If this Forbes article is to be trusted, the US government is limiting the number of physicians per year, causing a shortage and thus raising the cost of medical care due to lobbying on the part of the AMA. The government has also restricted the establishment of medical schools. Foreign doctors have to redo their residencies, regardless of how long they have been practicing, to legally practice in the US.
The Evil-Mongering Of The American Medical Association

Another problem is prescription drug medication. Thanks to patents, prescription drug companies have the license to price gouge their consumers without fear of competition. Some argue that the patent system guerantees that drug manufacturers will make a profit after developing the drug. The problem with this notion is that the big prescription drug companies spend more money on marketing than on R&D.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...rketing-than-research/?utm_term=.be4ebaf0521a

Which brings me onto my next point. The FDA puts a long and burdensome process on getting drugs approved. While it may be with best of intentions, it has effectively prevented many would be useful drugs from coming onto the market. Big pharmaceutical companies have little trouble complying with these regulations but smaller companies are effectively crowded out.

Really we first have to make a choice regarding drugs and devices. US healthcare spends more money on research and development per year than some of the countries like England spend on total healthcare. Are we willing to stop the advancement of medicine, no matter how bloated the numbers are, in exchange for cheaper care today? While people complain about insulin, for instance, there has been a fair amount of R&D into that both in terms of delivery and in effectiveness (like coming up with new versions that do not cause a patient's glucose levels to suddenly crater).

It is more complicated, at least in my view, than just it isn't fair we have to pay more than the British out of pocket. Is it fair to some one in the future with cancer that we spent significantly less searching for a cure that may have helped them because we were too cheap today to pay for our own health insurance? The ethics go beyond the economics.

 

[James972]

Really we first have to make a choice regarding drugs and devices. US healthcare spends more money on research and development per year than some of the countries like England spend on total healthcare. Are we willing to stop the advancement of medicine, no matter how bloated the numbers are, in exchange for cheaper care today? While people complain about insulin, for instance, there has been a fair amount of R&D into that both in terms of delivery and in effectiveness (like coming up with new versions that do not cause a patient's glucose levels to suddenly crater).

It is more complicated, at least in my view, than just it isn't fair we have to pay more than the British out of pocket. Is it fair to some one in the future with cancer that we spent significantly less searching for a cure that may have helped them because we were too cheap today to pay for our own health insurance? The ethics go beyond the economics.

Your mistaken assumption is that the excess we pay to insurance companies goes to research rather than to waste. You have no evidence. If we can have 5th generation internet and space travel from capitalism we can have a cancer cure from capitalism too.

 

[Drawdown]

Your mistaken assumption is that the excess we pay to insurance companies goes to research rather than to waste. You have no evidence. If we can have 5th generation internet and space travel from capitalism we can have a cancer cure from capitalism too.

My assumption is that reports of how much the US spends on medical research have a bigger number beside it than how much the UK spent on total healthcare in the same years. That is just irrefutable.

 

[James972]

My assumption is that reports of how much the US spends on medical research have a bigger number beside it than how much the UK spent on total healthcare in the same years. That is just irrefutable.

dear, we have 6 times the population and 10 times their GDP so what you say is "irrefutable" is meaningless.