Most health insurance companies have more negotiating power than entire countries and due to Obamacare, administrative fees can't exceed 15%. The cost of medicine itself, is too damn high.

I had lunch with the chief of staff of the largest hospital system in my metro area few days ago. Before that i talked to the chief medical officer of a large insurance company. The two biggest drivers of cost right from the horses mouth are healthcare workers salaries and drugs. The answer is not price controls but deregulation for the latter. Pharma lobbyists make up the biggest portion of lobbying dollars in our country. They lobby for regulation that exclude cheaper drug competitors from places like Canada and Europe.

Price controls are market distorting, so from an economics perspective allowing free market competition would be much healthier for reducing costs.

While true, medical research is both necessary and fucking expensive at the same time, so there is a need for patenting and other market-distorting measures to incentivize investment into medical progress. The tldr is that healthcare is a field where free markets are not the ultimate solution to everything and will not lead to optimal outcomes. Neither is socialism btw.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Oct 17 2019 06:31pm

Yes, and so what? Every other country in the world has them. For instance, in Belgium, and hip joint has a MAXIMUM cost otherwise you're forbidden from selling it. Obviously the manufacturer will take some profit over zero profit. We need the same thing in this country as well. Start with drugs and go from there.

Just make generics legal like we did *shrugs*

The so what is you can use better mechanisms rather than market distorting ones. Opening the pharma market to international competition would be a net good for reduction of healthcare costs. Once you do that you won't need price ceilings because they would reduce their prices organically to compete with cheaper drugs to a market equilibrium. I think this should be a bipartisan effort and hopefully it happens. Maybe a combo plan happens, but this is definitely something they could come together and work on, i just hope they don't pussy out and go for very weak changes.



I'm okay with sacrificing some small innovation to reign in costs. It's fucked up for Americans to pay 300 dollars for 2 generic epi-pens when in UK you can get one for like 40 dollars.

Why can't we import them from the UK? No matter how you cut this, it's a win for our country.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Oct 17 2019 07:38pm

Pro capitalist right winger:

"Epipens are too expensive in free market capitalist America, why aren't we importing them from the socialist UK where they are cheaper?"

This post was edited by inkanddagger on Oct 17 2019 07:50pm

You can buy generic epipens from CVS



Id agree with this for some medications. For some its pointless because generics are on the way.

This post was edited by EndlessSky on Oct 17 2019 07:50pm

Capitalists captured the regulatory system. Because that's what capitalists do when they are free to compete their way into monopolistic power.

The "Free market" is fantasy just like fire-breathing dragons and unicorns. It has never existed, it will never exist.

Also,

NotTrueCapitalism™️

This post was edited by inkanddagger on Oct 17 2019 07:53pm