Comment by nhashem | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nhashem | Hacker News Reader

It is tough to compare a healthcare "market" to any other market. Fundamentally, healthcare is a good that nobody will voluntarily want, but that everyone is going to need at some point. Furthermore, it does not lend itself for easy consumer evaluation. Imagine if doctors were reviewed on Yelp, and you saw a review that said, "My sister had cancer and this doctor performed the surgery to remove her tumor. Six months later, she died. One star." Did the doctor botch the surgery? Did the doctor actually perform a miraculous operation, giving someone on death's door and full six months of life? And is this something you really feel equipped to compare like whether you want the double cheeseburger at McDonalds or Wendy's?

We could also get into the further perverse incentives specific to the US healthcare system, but I've yet to see a fundamental argument about how efficient market forces can work Adam Smith's magic on healthcare.

We don't need a situation where everything is either a market, or not a market. For example we could have a government standardised healthcare product that is sensibly funded (eg taxation). But, and very importantly, not preclude others from providing that product or different products via any funding model they want.

For example you get this with BUPA in the UK - you pay extra and get quicker services plus more luxurious accommodation on hospitalization. Or a private organisation could provide services over night to the government (eg get a CT scan at 3am for cheap - the government could give people a paid incentive to take that instead of using daytime services).

It would be really great if there was a baseline service - eg you know that if you get a broken arm or cancer you would be sensibly taken care of, but beyond that a great flowering of experimentation (which markets do) in how things are provided and how they are paid for.

Law of large numbers, central limit theorem etc. If enough people give stars, with their systematic biases - we'll have useful results.

The market could work in healthcare. It should be our goal to make that a reality, because the alternatives sucks.

UK, US - sorry but that sucks.

These system are worse than what the market could provide with proper deregulation. We did that for airplanes. We can do it for healthcare.

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