Posted by Sir Four at 1:15pm Jul 16 '09I think posts deep in sub-threads were starting to get lost in the thread The Best Healthcare Reform Option Is:, so I started a new one. It seems the main debate there focused on whether a free market or government involvement can produce the better outcome.
I'll start by responding to [private], who made a hypothetical comparison here about cellphones: If auto insurance were required to provide drivers with cellphones when they first came out and were expensive, insurance costs would go up and the development of cellphone technology would stagnate or go in a different direction.
The comparison implies an equivalence between cellphones and medical technology. My fundamental point is that medicine is different than consumer products. Cellphones offer universal benefits and have multiple applications. Anybody can anticipate in advance the need for a cellphone, and comparisons from one model to the next can be made by the average consumer. Medical technology is not analogous:
First, it improves/saves lives exclusively (is not multi-use).
Second, one also does not typically anticipate needing a piece of medical technology in advance.
Third, it does not satisfy a universal need--one has to be diagnosed by a trained medical professional and then obtain/access prescribed medical technology without (usually) time and (almost always) the expertise to adequately comparison-shop.
Fourth, like any "latest" technology, medicine can be expensive, but because the need for any one piece of it is likely only to apply to a small slice of the population, it only makes sense to apply the insurance model, not the consumer model. If Machine X ($20,000) assists people with Disease Y (0.2% of the population), it only makes sense for the population to be insured for the treatment of Disease Y (everyone pays a little bit to hedge against the possibility of needing to pay retail for Machine X at some future date). The cellphone model does not apply to this scenario.
Point is this:
That which can be mass-produced and sold in stores or is non-essential to life and health, is best-served by the free market model. Most medical technology does not fit that model, and trying to shoehorn it in due to ideological concerns harms us all.
I'll start by responding to [private], who made a hypothetical comparison here about cellphones: If auto insurance were required to provide drivers with cellphones when they first came out and were expensive, insurance costs would go up and the development of cellphone technology would stagnate or go in a different direction.
The comparison implies an equivalence between cellphones and medical technology. My fundamental point is that medicine is different than consumer products. Cellphones offer universal benefits and have multiple applications. Anybody can anticipate in advance the need for a cellphone, and comparisons from one model to the next can be made by the average consumer. Medical technology is not analogous:
First, it improves/saves lives exclusively (is not multi-use).
Second, one also does not typically anticipate needing a piece of medical technology in advance.
Third, it does not satisfy a universal need--one has to be diagnosed by a trained medical professional and then obtain/access prescribed medical technology without (usually) time and (almost always) the expertise to adequately comparison-shop.
Fourth, like any "latest" technology, medicine can be expensive, but because the need for any one piece of it is likely only to apply to a small slice of the population, it only makes sense to apply the insurance model, not the consumer model. If Machine X ($20,000) assists people with Disease Y (0.2% of the population), it only makes sense for the population to be insured for the treatment of Disease Y (everyone pays a little bit to hedge against the possibility of needing to pay retail for Machine X at some future date). The cellphone model does not apply to this scenario.
Point is this:
That which can be mass-produced and sold in stores or is non-essential to life and health, is best-served by the free market model. Most medical technology does not fit that model, and trying to shoehorn it in due to ideological concerns harms us all.
Continued: The Best Healthcare Reform Option Is - Sir Four