http://www.npr.org/2013/08/07/20958...npr&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=20130808 Just reading through this. Kind of depressing.
It is the best mechanism for building wealth and lifting the average man up out of poverty that humans have found, but it isn't perfect. It would be a folly to think that we have a free market in the current health care system. The government is very much involved.
Psht. Doesn't exist. That's why we don't need any regulation in the system. Keep all hands off and it polices itself. Runs as smooth as a prom queen's thighs.
there is no price setting. There are ortho and spinal implant companies popping up left and right and have been for years. There are refurbishing companies that clean and resterilize products and try to bring prices down. I or you could go to Germany or Costa Rica and have plates and screws built to 510k fda specs. The things she mentioned do happen, but the reasons are too long. Lawsuits, malpractice insurance costs for surgeons, unnecessary doctor and ER visits, lack of preventative care, pills, pills and more pills, treating the uninsured or poor (somebody has to pay for it), medicare,... among the long list.
What we really need is some of those angelic people that make up our political system involved that never have any self interest and always do what's in the best for the collective. Prices will be at basement level and service will be amazing.
prices are high across the board. supplies the hospitals buy are ridiculously expensive. it's the same where i work. just about everything about it is out of whack.
For awhile, some hospitals didn't care what some companies charged them because they would bill out a code which paid them 10x+ what they paid, specifically on implants. With more global or flat fees, that practice is not as common.
not when you could figure out how to do the same thing, go in, and sell it cheaper. There are many companies that will come and sell the same thing for $20. The question is, does the hospital get $800 back if they bill it out? Or do they get $200. Hospitals' survival is about reimbursement.
The author suggests that if an implant costs $1000 to make it should be sold for $1000. Great business strategy. But the meat of the article isn't surprising. Healthcare is expensive to provide and therefore necessarily expensive to buy. Focusing on regulating insurance companies isn't fixing anything the big problem.
So why isn't that happening? Why are the most basic items needed in health care 10 or more times expensive simply for being targeted for medical use? If what you say is true, "the invisible hand" should be all over these sweater puppies and the price should be going down OR there must be some reason why there are 80 dollar tongue depressors and the like in the US but NOT in the rest of the western world. So what is that reason?
You mean when she mentions how that wouldn't work and cause things to "implode?" Either I read it wrong or you did. She wasn't arguing for things be sold at cost, she was arguing against 1300% markups. It'd be like a kid selling a glass of lemonade for $50 because he knows you have scurvy (or something).
she comes across to me as someone who has a beef with a total joint or implant company/s, and doesn't consider the hospital and surgeon malpractice and lawsuit costs compared to any hospital here and one in Belgium, fwiw. Doctors, hospitals and insurances here are sued all the time.
problem with us is for a lot of things we're contractually tied in to companies, notably Fisher Scientific. it's insanity. it requires ishmael and isaac shaking hands to buy from somebody else even if they're selling the same thing or something comparable for cheaper. full disclosure, i work for UT, and i have no idea how it's different for a state gov't institution, even if the state only contributes a small part of our funding, somewhere around 30% IIRC
