Quote:
Originally Posted by ijusluvit
It amazes me how two posters above can believe that there is "no real (free) market" relative to health care. Very simply, US drug companies, many hospitals and some doctors charge astronomical fees in comparison to those costs elsewhere in the developed world. Those same entities reap astronomical profits - all because there is essentially NOTHING regulating them.
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I'm not arguing that there's "no real free market" relative to health care. We still have "fee for service" providers. We have people getting cheaper drugs from Canada and people getting operations in foreign countries. And American drug companies do compete with each other, that's why some have done very well and some have failed. I'm not an expert on how hospitals operate but they charge "astronomical fees" to make up for all the poor who don't pay them anything. And, in that regard, hospitals charge more precisely because they are regulated.
My opening post simply makes the case that we are moving in the wrong direction, the direction of over regulation driven by higher rates of disease. I'm not making a case for zero regulation. It's likely that some basic regulation will always be needed.