The Myth Of Free-Market Healthcare

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='apparently' timestamp='1300478950' post='2221571']
yes i do
[/quote]
That's not even an answer. I asked "Are you saying...", you said "yes I do".

[quote name='apparently' timestamp='1300479414' post='2221576']
not any more,

so why did the Canadian Premier Danny Williams, of Newfoundland and Labrador, go to the US for heart surgery, If as you said [code]Americans receive only a mediocre quality of care. [/code] ?
[/quote]
Probably because, despite the many flaws of the American system, it is possible to get timelier care, and quite likely higher quality as well.
The article isn't even about Canadian healthcare. Seriously, why are you doing this?

[add]

[url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?app=forums&module=forums&section=findpost&pid=2221465"][img]public/style_images/baisik/snapback.png[/img][/url]Nihil Obstat, on 17 March 2011 - 08:13 PM, said:

So then you're saying that the AMA does not have a monopoly over American healthcare, and does not restrict the number of healthcare professionals?

yes to your QUESTION, ipso facto.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='apparently' timestamp='1300481390' post='2221587']
[url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?app=forums&module=forums&section=findpost&pid=2221465"][img]public/style_images/baisik/snapback.png[/img][/url]Nihil Obstat, on 17 March 2011 - 08:13 PM, said:

So then you're saying that the AMA does not have a monopoly over American healthcare, and does not restrict the number of healthcare professionals?

yes to your QUESTION, ipso facto.
[/quote]
So, to clarify further, since your replies are nearly indecipherable, you are saying precisely that the AMA *does not* have a monopoly over American healthcare, and *does not* restrict the number of medical professionals.
Yes, this is what you're saying?

[add]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1300481662' post='2221590']
So, to clarify further, since your replies are nearly indecipherable, you are saying precisely that the AMA *does not* have a monopoly over American healthcare, and *does not* restrict the number of medical professionals.
Yes, this is what you're saying?
[/quote]

as are you inane reply's
what part of yes don't you understand?

[Winchester]

[quote name='apparently' timestamp='1300483847' post='2221598']
as are you inane reply's

[/quote]
His inane reply's [i]what[/i]?

[Winchester]

It doesn't matter how snitty people get, the article still is not about Canadia or in support of government run healthcare.

[Laudate_Dominum]

I hereby endorse Winchester and his pov.

[Norseman82]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1300481662' post='2221590']
So, to clarify further, since your replies are nearly indecipherable, you are saying precisely that the AMA *does not* have a monopoly over American healthcare, and *does not* restrict the number of medical professionals.
Yes, this is what you're saying?
[/quote]

I don't find them indecipherable.

[add]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1300484877' post='2221603']
It doesn't matter how snitty people get, the article still is not about Canadia or in support of government run healthcare.
[/quote]

The article " the myth of free-market healthcare" that demonetizes the AMA is just cheap shots by commies who are either biased against physicians or who are too lazy to work for a living.

The story brought up some important points, but it was highly biased. It also omitted a key point.

First, the AMA does not have the amount of political power implied by this article. Kelly, like many other writers on this topic, portrays the AMA as having more power than many governments. It is a ridiculous belief. The AMA would love to have just half the power investigative reports think it has.

Second, the closure of deficient "medical schools" in the early 1900s was NOT an AMA project only: responsible physicians across the country wanted these poor excuses for medical schools closed down. They were producing half-trained quacks, not physicians. They had no admission standards except the ability to pay tuition. Some students didn't have high school diplomas but managed to get MDs.

The AMA is not trying to prevent competition to drive up charges. The average physician works more than 65 hours per week. More doctors to carry the load would be welcome, and they would not drive down charges. (Lots of patients who are paying for their own care will drive down charges. Nothing else will.) The federal government has been the 900 pound gorilla halting the expansion of old and creation of new medical schools for over 30 years. The federal government believes there are too many physicians, and particularly too many specialists, providing unneeded care to Medicare and Medicaid patients. The federal government believed that strangling physician supply and reducing the numbers of specialists would lower Medicare and Medicaid costs. To achieve that goal, the federal government decreased funding of specialist residency programs and increased funding of primary care programs. The AMA, and most other medical groups, opposed this action. (In an era of increasingly complex medicine, we need more specialists, not fewer. The myth of Marcus Welby, M.D. needs to be buried.)

Third, the AMA is NOT the voice of American physicians. Kelly failed to mention that less than one-fourth of practicing physicians are AMA members, and that some of the AMA member physicians disagree with AMA policies and actions. The reality is that a minority of physicians support the AMA's political positions. Most of us dislike how cozy the AMA is with the federal government. The AMA's approval of Obamacare is opposed by a majority of licensed, practicing physicians.




The article still is [s]not [/s]all about Canadian or in support of government run healthcare, chump.

Edited March 19, 2011 by apparently

[Winchester]

[quote name='apparently' timestamp='1300494936' post='2221638']
The article still is [s]not [/s]all about Canadian or in support of government run healthcare, chump.
[/quote]
Your face is a chump.

[Winchester]

[quote]Socialists want us to turn to nationalized healthcare, where the state will pay for our healthcare (as though we will not still be paying for it). But this will not work either.[6] When medical care is free, people consume more of it. The costs would continually rise, as they currently do in the United States. Because national governments have limited budgets, governments with socialized medicine impose cost controls and limit spending to a particular amount. But because nothing limits individuals from going to the doctor, waiting lines grow longer and longer.[/quote]
Yeah, sounds like a real national health care promotion.

[Jesus_lol]

you say "when medical care is free [should be "available"] more people will use it" like it is a bad thing. that's the freaking point.

[Nihil Obstat]

[Maggyie]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1300464386' post='2221547']
That's not what I've seen in my city. When we've hired contractors in the past, we know a ton about them before we've ever spoken to them. It's very possible to find these things out. If the information is hard to find, you ask the contractor to see pictures of his last project, or to talk to the clients. If he refuses, there's a red flag already. You ask to see his estimates and his final costs.
For a doctor, you don't need to see a trail of dead bodies to know he's not the right one. First you see if he's agreed to be licensed by any voluntary body. You search him on the internet. There are bound to be patient testimonials. Heck, there are already sites for that, even though in theory they should be unnecessary. I bet there will be many times more when they're more important. On top of that, there will certainly be many more ways to check on your doctor in that scenario than there are now, simply because they will be more valuable.
The problem with this debate is that people assume simply that doctors stop licensing and everything else stays the same. That's thinking the way central planners want you to think. The entire paradigm needs to be re-imagined. In the market, needs are filled. Even needs you didn't know you had, but certainly needs that everybody worries about.
[/quote]

The online research thing... online testimonials really don't work as well as people think they do. A certain percentage (and in some cases a very high percentage) of reviews are fake. Either positive reviews filed by the business owner themselves or their family or staff or people they've paid to do it. Or negative reviews from angry ex-employees, customers turned over to collection agencies, romantic failures, competitors etc who are trying to destroy the business.

When it comes to medicine, there's also no way for negative reviews (or a negative reputation) to pile up without people potentially getting seriously endangered first. Again, it really, really can't be compared to hiring a roofing contractor or a plumbing contractor. These are human lives and human bodies we're talking about. If you hire a bad roofer, you're out a few grand, you publicize your displeasure as best you can, you get somebody else to fix it. Maybe you sue.

If you hire a bad, unlicensed doctor and they miss the bacterial meningitis diagnosis, your child winds up in the hospital with thousands more in medical costs and possibly disabled or dead (it's cheaper to get it right the first time). You write a negative review. Maybe you sue. Your kid is still dead.

The biggest problem with this idea is that it limits people's access to healthcare - it rations access based on wealth. This is already the case in the USA, with poorer people who can't afford insurance dying of conditions that privileged people can avoid thanks to having more and better access. This is not a road we need to be going down when the gap between the rich and the poor is at a record high and getting bigger. Ultimately when you commodify healthcare you are to an extent commodifying human health and well-being and ultimately human lives. Rich people do not "deserve" to access better care than the poor. Healthcare access is a basic human right for everybody.

Nihil, besides the practical policy considerations I am wondering what the theological basis for your thinking is?

Edited March 19, 2011 by Maggie

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Maggie' timestamp='1300515037' post='2221682']
Nihil, besides the practical policy considerations I am wondering what the theological basis for your thinking is?
[/quote]
I have very good reason to believe that privatization will lead to both lower prices and higher quality. I don't believe that healthcare is altogether different from most other consumer goods.
Speaking from a moral POV, I believe that privatization of the market is what is best for the poor.

A man named Donald Boudreaux makes what I believe to be an excellent point. He imagines a scenario where a man from the year 1700 is transported forward in time and is shown how Bill Gates and his family lives.

"a good guess is that the features of Gates's life that would make the deepest impression are that he and his family never worry about starving to death; that they bathe daily; that they have several changes of clean clothes; that they have clean and healthy teeth; that diseases such as smallpox, polio, diphtheria, tuberculosis, tetanus, and pertussis present no substantial risks; that Melinda Gates's chances of dying during childbirth are about one-sixtieth what they would have been in 1700; that each child born to the Gateses is about 40 times more likely than a pre-industrial child to survive infancy; that the Gateses have a household refrigerator and freezer (not to mention microwave oven, dishwasher, and radios and televisions); that the Gateses's work week is only five days and that the family takes several weeks of vacation each year; that each of the Gates children will receive more than a decade of formal schooling; that the Gateses routinely travel through the air to distant lands in a matter of hours; that they effortlessly converse with people miles or oceans away; that they frequently enjoy the world's greatest actors' and actresses' stunning performances; that the Gateses can, whenever and wherever they please, listen to a Beethoven piano sonata, a Puccini opera, or a Frank Sinatra ballad."

Thomas Woods expands: "In other words, what would most impress our visitor are the aspects of Gates's life that the software giant [b]shares with ordinary Americans[/b]. When you consider the differences that characterized rich and poor prior to the Industrial Revolution, on the other hand, the "capitalism-promotes-inequality" myth is further exposed as the ignorant canard that it is."

Boudreaux again:

"And while we modern Americans focus on how much more money Bill Gates has than the rest of us, our time-traveler would likely find the differences separating Gates from average Americans to be much smaller than the gargantuan differences between his own pre-industrial life and that of today’s ordinary Americans.

He would also likely find the wealth differences between ordinary Americans and the richest Americans trivial compared to the differences between most pre-industrial folk and the royalty who ruled them."