Comment by LimaBearz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by LimaBearz | Hacker News Reader

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I love how conservatives still make this argument. You're arguing for the free market in a system that literally isn't, and doing it in such a way that it tries to be a thought-terminating cliche.

If you get into a car accident tomorrow driving to work, the ambulance/paramedics aren't going to ask you to do your research prior to shuttling you to a hospital to get life saving treatment. Even if you could how would you be able to tell which hospital has what price structure, what services you'll actually need given your medical condition, and what arrangements they have with various drug manufacturers and how that relates to what you require to help your condition. Save it.. "no one to blame but yourself" is so incredibly idiotic is comical.

Take something even more benign, like someone falling and breaking/straining something. Wanna still do your research first? Is it a sprain, fracture, break? How do you know? Is it clear cut? What pain medication will you need? Will you require surgery? What lab work will you need? How many tests will you need? X-rays? CAT scan? MRI? What kind of surgeon? How many nurses? Will you require blood? Whats the recovery like? What about follow up visits? Do you expect us all to practice free market principles and know all that crap in advance for price discovery before deciding to seek treatment?

True free market principles require an asymmetry of information for the system to work, and even "fathers" of the theory understood that and acknowledge the need for regulation when its absent.

I think you meant :

  True free market principles require a symmetry of information for the system to work

But great post otherwise!

> and even "fathers" of the theory understood that and acknowledge the need for regulation when its absent.

I would emphasize that traditional forms of conservatism were never opposed to all regulation and never embraced this libertarian worship of the unregulated market. They were opposed to collectivism, but the only remaining option isn't radical individualism. Neither are good for the individual or for society.

Why is this being downvoted?!?!

Too political without basis, I would guess.

The basis is so completely obvious though, if your health is badly compromised then you will be much less able to make good decisions in any circumstances, let alone dealing with the current for-profit healthcare system in the US.

You Americans are getting so screwed... I got 4 separate X-ray scans done for $40 recently, modern machine, sent home with physical copies and USB, etc.

I agree with the premise of your argument, but why did you have to start it with "I love how conservatives still make this argument"?

You have no idea what that person's thoughts or beliefs are...

Because this is the premise of the conservative argument. The thoughts are clearly conveyed.

Price transparency regulations could also be used to implement public price controls or public fines on monopolies engaging in price discrimination.

For instance if a provider billed a patient over 100% of their stated price or over 120% the minimum price for the same item published by comparable providers, there might be some public fine or tax on the biller and rebate to the patient in proportion to the entire amount by which the patient was over-billed regardless of their insurance status.

This would possibly amount to something similar to universal public price negotiation.

But yes the idea of using pricing transparency to suppress over-billing by monopolies could possibly be interpreted as suggesting a rejection of the alternative idea of centrally fixing all consumer facing prices using a public office and then determining all government facing prices from external suppliers providing necessary inputs for the public healthcare system through minimum bid.

Parent is not labeling the poster as conservative; he is labeling the argument as the underpinning of the same argument conservatives often make. That's a nuanced difference.

If we are concerned with nuance, there's probably at least 2 different conservative arguments.

There is the hyper-libertarian argument which says that if someone arrives at a hospital unconcious, and the hospital bills them the maximum amount they estimate the patient can pay before bankruptcy, so the hospital can maximize initially reported earnings before writing down unpaid debts, that this is somehow a voluntarily market price as long as the hospital is private and not owned by the government, because value is purely subjective and has no relation to cost.

Then there is the other argument which says if hospitals are over-billing people which are under duress, that this is bad and we want to do something about it, but we don't want to immediately nationalize healthcare and ban private health insurance. This second type of conservatism usually focuses on price controls or regulation of monopolies.

With pricing transparency regulations, it's probably possible to implement universal public price negotiation by fining non-elective healthcare providers which bill patients over 100% of their previously published price or 120% of the minimum price published by comparable providers. Then rebate patients the entire amount they were over-billed regardless of their insurance status.

With over-billing rebates there is less need to collect payroll tax to finance social insurance premiums. Need based assistance could be financed from more progressive property taxes on the rich, and the actual price controls could be implemented relatively cheaply by randomly auditing providers to ensure compliance, by allowing patients to manually submit invoices whenever they felt they were over-billed, and by financing rebates to patients entirely from fines on providers.

It's certainly possible that other systems would work better. However if we want to be nuanced there are many different strands of U.S. conservatism. Historically U.S. conservatives subscribed to some form of cost or labor theory of value. The kind of hyper-libertarian conservative movement which says private prices are always fair is probably less than 100 years old.

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