On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 8:55 PM, Warren Ockrassa<war...@nightwares.com> wrote: > > But we have free market solutions. We've had them for decades.
For healthcare? Free market as in, minimal government restrictions on what consumers can buy and what providers can sell? I'd certainly like to hear about such things. > The idea of insurance is that a large number of people pool their resources > together to lighten the burden of loss for a few. The assumption being that you are INSURING against unexpected costs. Most health care plans are not insurance in this sense, but are rather cafeteria plans, since they cover a large chunk of yearly health maintenance costs that are not particularly unexpected. > That's the ideal, and in my experience, in practice, it works. Where I work, > we're self-insured, and we've got superb coverage. But I am fortunate and > definitely the exception. Many in my community aren't able to blithely walk > into a doctor's office and say they need a checkup or are worried about > such-and-such a growth or so-and-so an internal bodily concern. Just a few > months ago I went to the allergist and had a scratch test, and the $250 or > so bill cost me nothing. At all. It cost somebody $250. Was it worth $250 to you if you had to pay it yourself? Or is it only worth it if you are spending someone else's money. > They're locked *out* of healthcare because the free-marked option is not > available to them. Unfortunately, the market in health care is far from free. There are myriad government restrictions on health care consumers and providers. Government interference (employer provided health care being tax exempt) also limits the choice of health care consumers. Worst, in my experience, are the restrictions and regulations of some states. I've found that the same health insurance that I buy when I have lived in different states has varied by a factor of about 5 from cheapest to most expensive, and this is almost entirely due to government interference in what the health care providers may and may not do. > Those who argue for free-market, I think, have never actually confronted the > full-bore costs of healthcare in the US today. One night in a hospital can > cost you well into four figures, even for something trivial. My stepdad just > got a triple bypass. The full-on price of his surgery would have been > $80,000, or about the value of his home. He was lucky; as a retired > government officer he had vestiture and full coverage. Very, very few > retired private persons have that opportunity. That's what health INSURANCE, in the real sense of the word insurance, is for. I have real health insurance, I pay for routine expenses out of pocket but am covered for larger, unexpected expenses. > The Invisible Hand is smothering people in their beds. No, bu the quite visible hand of politicians is in your pocket and limiting your freedom of choice. _______________________________________________ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
