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re: The Good People of Switzerland have said no to government healthcare
Posted on 10/1/14 at 12:49 pm to Ace Midnight
Posted on 10/1/14 at 12:49 pm to Ace Midnight
quote:
This is demonstrably not true. People call 9/11 to bring them a drink of water. If this is not discouraged, it continues. People go to the emergency room to get refills of their anti-seizure medication. Why? No upfront costs to them.
Emergency services are elastic, precisely because there are incentives for their utilization for "non-emergency" purposes. Just as E/Rs have adjusted to being the de facto pain management clinics by declining to provide the prescription drugs of abuse, their utilization for these purposes have dropped.
Human behavior is also not "inelastic", as it responds in relation to the market. In a small community with 1 fire truck, perhaps Joe Average doesn't call them for a small trash fire and puts it out himself. While in a large city, a small trash fire near a medium-sized apartment complex might generate a reasonable fire response.
While it is far more complex than the supply and demand laws for Coca-cola, for example, market forces exist for almost anything you can imagine.
I'm not talking about frivolous, illegitimate demand created by cost-shifting laws or anything like that. I'm talking about straight-up demand for emergency services, and how it responds to changes in price. The answer is it doesn't, as demand for emergency services is essentially "perfectly inelastic"; the demand curve is vertical. We have other perfectly (or near to it) inelastic markets that work just fine, such as housing and food. The difference is, the consumer has choices at different price points and quality within those markets, whereas in emergency services there is little or no choice (this is the caveat).
1
Posted on 10/1/14 at 2:03 pm to Korkstand
quote:
I'm talking about straight-up demand for emergency services, and how it responds to changes in price.
Do you think part of the problem is how the private sector has been structured in communicating the costs of medical treatment generally?
Because, I assure you that people who have hefty premiums don't think they're getting emergency care "for free" and the indigent do.
And don't get me started on the whole pricing model by the health care system - I'm not in denial about the structural problems in the "old" system (which doesn't really exist any longer - Medicare, Medicaid and private forms of managed care have brought the rapid increases in pricing of health care under some level of control over the past 25 years).
So, this new "hybrid" system isn't good enough? We have to go 100% public, single-payer or it won't work?
I refuse to believe that the health care system that was/is the envy of much of the world is unfixable without socialism.
Posted on 10/1/14 at 2:04 pm to Ace Midnight
Doesn't Switzerland already have something similar to the ACA and this vote was for single payer?
Posted on 10/1/14 at 2:17 pm to ForeverLurking
I lived in Switzerland for four months.
Might be the cleanest most wonderful country on the planet.
My host family - the father - got two months paid vacation as a nuclear physicist.
If I had the money or a job there, I'd move in a heartbeat...that or Norway which has the greatest quality of life.
Might be the cleanest most wonderful country on the planet.
My host family - the father - got two months paid vacation as a nuclear physicist.
If I had the money or a job there, I'd move in a heartbeat...that or Norway which has the greatest quality of life.
Posted on 10/1/14 at 2:46 pm to Ace Midnight
quote:Sure, this is definitely a problem.
Do you think part of the problem is how the private sector has been structured in communicating the costs of medical treatment generally?
quote:I don't know what the best system is. It just seems apparent, to me at least, that a 100% free market system can't work very well.
So, this new "hybrid" system isn't good enough? We have to go 100% public, single-payer or it won't work?
quote:Capitalism is great. You love it, I love it, we all love it. But the bottom line is there are some markets where it just doesn't work well. Military, police, fire, prisons, etc... and I would throw health care in there (at least emergency care). I never see anybody claiming our military is socialism at work, so it's a shame that single-payer health care gets that label.
I refuse to believe that the health care system that was/is the envy of much of the world is unfixable without socialism.
Posted on 10/1/14 at 2:47 pm to ForeverLurking
quote:
Doesn't Switzerland already have something similar to the ACA and this vote was for single payer?
sounds likely, and for the person below you, Switzerland is one of the most difficult countries to obtain citizenship for, unless you are a billionaire.
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