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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe Btfsplk who wrote (67587)	10/16/2008 4:16:28 PM
From: thames_sider	Respond to of 90947

In a sane world the provision of care, insurance, and all would be left to he discovery process of a free market. That would work toward containing costs while improving quality. Suddenly, I disagree. See my post to Tim... Message 25076591 Mass healthcare is not a perfect market for many reasons, and probably can't ever be - the barriers to entry are far too high, the consumer generally lacks perfect information, and often the condition requiring treatment is urgent or incapacitating so they can hardly shop around anyway. Plus the costs are so high that very few individuals can actually pay themselves, so they use insurance or state schemes - which then means that the consumer is not the actual customer, and competition aligned to the latter may not work in the benefit of the former, so choice gets limited or directed further. A perfect example of an insight I wouldn't have had without this debate. Admittedly I'm referring to the economist's 'perfect market' but all the above apply to explain why healthcare probably isn't a good choice to leave to the market alone. Not good for the consumer - the patient, that is.