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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (6427)	3/22/2009 4:02:07 PM
From: Lane3	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

To the extent you take profits away from that community, by whatever means, you end up with lesser performance here. You're making an assumption there that may not be valid. There are a variety of ways to respond to competition, some of them very positive in terms of quality. If people start going to the new medical facility on the other side of the tracks, the facilities losing business can improve efficiency, consolidate, focus, and generally improve their product in response. I don't see how you get more expensive drugs out of that. As for fewer physicians, well, you have fewer patients so having fewer physicians is a feature, not a fault. However, if you want significantly lower health care costs in America the way you'll get it is by cutting the quality of care we receive here. If some people utilize a facility that costs less, then you have reduced the country's health costs. Sure, there's a point which it is destructive to reduce the number of patients by diverting them. You need enough patients to get economies of scale and maintain an infrastructure. But industries slimming down by ten or twenty percent can make for a healthier industries.

To: i-node who wrote (6427)	3/22/2009 9:08:55 PM
From: TimF	3 Recommendations Respond to of 42652

But in the end, if so-called "medical tourism" became a truly significant portion of total health care, it would adversely impact the American medical community and result in fewer physicians, more expensive hospitals, more costly drugs here, etc. There certainly would be fewer physicians, hospitals, etc. if competition from elsewhere took over a significant portion of the business, but fewer/less doesn't imply worse or more costly. It may be more costly if the medical services in the US move upmarket, but then its likely to be better not worse. It may be worse, if they try to compete on price, but then its likely to be cheaper not more expensive. It may be neither, in fact competition can, and often does, result in improvements in both price and quality.