Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Mainstream Politics and Economics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (14715)	4/5/2012 9:39:36 AM
From: sm1th	2 Recommendations Respond to of 85487

Competition doesn't help with demographics, it doesn't help with unfunded liabilities and it doesn't help with science issue of living longer and all that means. How does a govt monopoly help with those factors? Competition is great if you're buying a loaf of bread - but health care just doesn't work here. You want the cheapest medicine? The cheaper medicine for an antibiotic for instance might fight yesterday's infection but not today's resistant bug. You have a heart attack, you really want to shop around for the cheapest ambulance or hospital? Your child is sick, are you going to take him to the doctor in the ally who offers a 20% discount? Sorry, I don't buy the argument. It is competition among payers, not providers, although the savings would be significant if prices and outcomes could be legally made public. Much healthcare expense is not emergency, and comparison would help.

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (14715)	4/5/2012 1:59:43 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 85487

Competition doesn't help with demographics, it doesn't help with unfunded liabilities and it doesn't help with science issue of living longer and all that means. Sure it does. Those problems are only problems because they increase costs. Competition helps contain costs. It might not be a huge factor with heart attacks (but even here you can get some benefit, esp. on the insurance side which is where almost all the reforms go anyway), but it can have a larger impact on slower conditions or routine treatment. And it has had a sizable impact on optional treatments that are not typically covered by insurance, like laser eye surgery. One important factor that keeps it from having as large of impact in most of health care is the cost insulation provided by insurance (government paid insurance most of all, then employer provided insurance, but even non-subsidized individual insurance is often structured so as to provide such insulation). That's why the cost containment (or often reduction) in non-insured areas is better than in areas typically covered by insurance. PPACA/Obamacare moves this in the wrong direction, even its goal of having more people covered (assuming it achieves its goal) means more care is covered by insurance, and more importantly its extensive mandates for covering conditions and its limits on co-pays and deductibles, enforce cost insulation. Covering more people might potentially be considered a worthwhile enough goal to be worth the extra cost from having more people covered, and the extra cost insulation helping to drive future cost increases. That's a debatable idea, but not unreasonable. Unfortunately it probably will cover more people by having the government cover more people, and the key probably with cost is the unsustainability of the expense of government promised coverage. Even before PPACA the government had promised what can not be indefinitely afforded, now those promises have increased. The effective outlawing of catastrophic insurance gives people less freedom to find an insurance contract that fits their particular situation and desires. It also forces cost insulation even on those who don't want it. That could be a major factor helping to drive cost up in the future.