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Comment by booboo12345 | Hacker News Reader

What's not to get? This is what privatization does. It's not for proper care of patients, it's for money to flow upwards to a single individual.

Logically and financially, a single payer system makes way more sense. No marketing costs, no CEO costs, no costs for the entire medical billing industry, no costs for excessive paperwork.

Just care.

When my mom was in hospice last year for a month before she passed, Medicare covered that 100%. It was amazing, it's like, didn't have to worry about being bankrupt after she passed. No paperwork for us to deal with, no surprise bills, etc. just care.

Imagine the world...

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> This is what privatization does.

This is what regulatory capture does. It may be so-called "private" but the government still wants to regulate it up the wazoo, in all the wrong ways. This prevents new businesses from making things better.

> a single payer system makes way more sense.

If the single payer is the very same government then it becomes incentivized to bring the regulation in line to something more sensible. Of course, if the single payer is a separate entity that won't necessarily happen. For example: Amish communities in the US often administer a single payer system, but they haven't been able to fix the situation.

Unless you can identify that the regulatory capture happened as a result of the government's actions as opposed to the business actions, I don't really see how regulatory capture caused this situation. Rather, we made a choice to cripple the affordable care act while keeping all of the provisions that limit the rights of individuals to shop for health insurance, and then we're surprised when the prices spin out of control while the care gets worse.

I don't think regulatory capture is an argument for getting the government out of this business, I think it's an argument for getting the business out of this business.

To be fair, there are much better models for privatization (eg. Israel has 4 competing HMOs and the poor are given subsidies by the state).

There are many problems with the US healthcare system, not the least of which is the fact that we have something like 18 different ones.

"What's not to get? This is what privatization does. It's not for proper care of patients, it's for money to flow upwards to a single individual."

I get that they are maximizing profits. But why does the process have to be so clunky and complex? When I fly somewhere, I buy a ticket with the expectation of getting to my destination without much fuzz. My bags also usually get there without problem.

Translating the health care experience to flying, nobody could tell me how much the flight costs. After the flight I would get invoices from various baggage handlers which the airline would pay for or maybe not based on unknowable criteria. The copilot may be out of network so I would have to pay extra. The pilot may demand upfront payment. And so on.

My point is: Why can't this super expensive system not at least be a smooth experience? Like, you go to a doctor, they enter some data into a website and tell you how much it will cost. This shouldn't be hard to do.

I am sure there is a cost savings if insurers were just required to pay. I have to imagine, they put a lot of effort auditing if medical service was in-network/covered by the plan. And more effort in fighting the people over claims. This isn't to say there is not genuine fraud or abuse going on by hospitals/doctors, but you often hear of people just trying to get their treatments covered.

Thats what regulatory capture does. The enforcement of everyone must buy your product, and you are not allowed to directly shop for who provides your insurance. Insurance is one of the least free markets in the US. Insurance companies are the ones that cry "if only this was more regulated"

> This is what privatization does.

Yes, this is the same reason it takes 7 weeks and two referrals to have my car serviced, or my floors cleaned. Private industry is terrible at these things.

Exactly, this is clearly not a problem of privatization. In The Netherlands for example the system is privatized but highly regulated and there's no such issues. And like you said there's infinite industries without interference from the state where you clearly know prices and can decide what you want and no shenanigans. The US just fucked up the system somehow but privatization isn't the problem.

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