Medical care is expensive because the industry is joined at the hip to government and to the legal and insurance industries, with all aspects of free market economics completely removed, leading to all the waste, fraud, and corruption that implies. Yes, it’s really that simple.
Absolutely. NO DISCUSSION. Your post is right on the mark.
Karl Denninger had a good rant on the subject today. Says health care costs are 10 times what they should be.
Let’s add this up.
First, you are willing to pay just about anything...to live as long as possible. And if a dimwit says you need to pay $7k a year for health insurance....you will pay it. And if a hospital conducts an operation for $44k, and your bill at the end of six weeks is $79k...you will pay it. No arguments.
Second, if any of the various doctors, nurses or ambulance drivers screws up....there’s 100k lawyers in America who are ready in an instant to sue...for a minimum of $100k.
Third, you have a wide array of insurance folks acting as middle man, and likely going home with thirty percent of whatever you pay for your yearly premium.
Fourth, your Congressmen and Senators are in the middle of this whole mess...for no apparent reason, except to make campaign funding off the real players of the game.
Finally, drugs are driving this nation’s economy. You discover that Vicodin is a great drug....and that pain you’ve suffered from since high school football days? We can fix that....with the normal dose, and a bit of an extra dose (from some local dealer)...which is all illegal, and will eventually make you imagine that the tooth-fairy is real, and that the guys on Amish Mafia are real mafia characters.
Correct , what a racket insurance is.
You have a firm grasp of the problem, unfortunately the actual solution remains illusive.
What we need is a drug that fights governmental cancer (a politanoma?).
When government started to pay for medicine, practitioners soon learned to cash in on the gravy train.
You will notice that there are far more procedures than cures.
And while some advances have been made, we have a health care system that is far to large for the capability of a society to support it because no individual had to pay for it.
Yes, it is that simple.
If healthcare was 100% turned over to the free market we would have a burgeoning industry filled with all kinds of competition, innovation and probably a 80% dive in costs.
Sort of what happening with technology in the last decades. Can you imagine how stultified and expensive computer technology would be if Gov't had been in charge of it?
Health care is no different.