ray
When you go into a store the prices for the products are on the shelf. Same with most other products or services offered to consumers...
When you go into a doctors office.... or a hospital, the prices for a medical procedure are rarely advertised. (A rare exception being laser eye surgery which is entirely optional. And which, because there is true elasticity in demand, has gone down in price.) I think if pricing is not a feature of the marketing of a medical service, or practitioner, then its self evident that price competition is not occurring.
To argue, why not? as you do, is not offering evidence that there is actual price competition now is it? (If ever there was an unsupported argument its "why not?" ..)
The reason there is no competition is because doctors and hospitals don't really want to compete on price. And because patients aren't empowered to shop like any other commodity. ( def: a substance or product that can be traded, bought, or sold:)
If you want to prove that wrong, find evidence that there is transparency on pricing ...
Just so you know; the AMA forbade advertising by doctors until 1982....
A major component of a competitive market place is advertising and marketing... It doesn't do much good to compete on price, when you can't tell the market place you are doing so...
And interestingly, since a 1982 SCOTUS ruling that allowed advertising .... there has been no significant change. Price and cost are not a feature of medical services advertisements .
You ask why not? Because they don't have to compete on price. So they don't.
Rayjay
Right now, in the US, health care sector is an unregulated oligopoly. Not that there aren't lots of competitors, its just that they really aren't competing, at least on price to the end user.
That's why medical procedures and pharmaceuticals are so much more expensive than in nations where the industry is regulated. Comparisons here.
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/pe ... ntries.asp
Regulated industries come with their own problems, but right now runaway cost is driving more and more Americans into difficult decisions. Even Trump noted that he would negotiate better drug prices .... in several of his rambles. When medicaid was not allowed to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies .... you've got an oligopoly protected by Congress.
Here's how drugs are an oligopoly...
Drug manufacturers in the U.S. set their own prices, and that’s not the norm elsewhere in the world.
The US allows “government-protected monopolies” for certain drugs, preventing generics from coming to market to reduce prices.
The FDA takes a long time to approve generic drugs.
Sometimes, state laws and other “well-intentioned” federal policies limit generics’ abilities to keep costs down.Pharmacists in 26 states are required by law to get patient consent before switching to a generic drug, the authors wrote. This reportedly cost Medicaid $19.8 million dollars in 2006 for just one drug: a statin called simvastatin whose brand name is Zocor. Costs ran higher because pharmacists didn’t get patient consent and Medicaid had to pay for the costlier brand name drug even though a cheaper product was available.
http://time.com/money/4462919/prescript ... -too-high/
rayjay
The reason that 18% of your GDP is taken up by health care, is because of ideology.
In other countries its 9 to 12% ... Because people decided that
1) health care is a right, not a product or commodity.
2) regulation ensures that providers and service vendors can be profitable despite and sometimes because of regulation.
3) heath insurance companies provided administrative costs and overhead without providing value.
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publica ... tive-costs
Why can't there be competition in health care? There are many doctors, hospitals, pharmaceuticals, etc. to choose from. We have competition in food and we often cannot delay that purchase.
When you go into a store the prices for the products are on the shelf. Same with most other products or services offered to consumers...
When you go into a doctors office.... or a hospital, the prices for a medical procedure are rarely advertised. (A rare exception being laser eye surgery which is entirely optional. And which, because there is true elasticity in demand, has gone down in price.) I think if pricing is not a feature of the marketing of a medical service, or practitioner, then its self evident that price competition is not occurring.
To argue, why not? as you do, is not offering evidence that there is actual price competition now is it? (If ever there was an unsupported argument its "why not?" ..)
The reason there is no competition is because doctors and hospitals don't really want to compete on price. And because patients aren't empowered to shop like any other commodity. ( def: a substance or product that can be traded, bought, or sold:)
If you want to prove that wrong, find evidence that there is transparency on pricing ...
Just so you know; the AMA forbade advertising by doctors until 1982....
A major component of a competitive market place is advertising and marketing... It doesn't do much good to compete on price, when you can't tell the market place you are doing so...
And interestingly, since a 1982 SCOTUS ruling that allowed advertising .... there has been no significant change. Price and cost are not a feature of medical services advertisements .
You ask why not? Because they don't have to compete on price. So they don't.
Rayjay
Also, are you now arguing that health care should be a regulated monopoly?
Right now, in the US, health care sector is an unregulated oligopoly. Not that there aren't lots of competitors, its just that they really aren't competing, at least on price to the end user.
That's why medical procedures and pharmaceuticals are so much more expensive than in nations where the industry is regulated. Comparisons here.
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/pe ... ntries.asp
Regulated industries come with their own problems, but right now runaway cost is driving more and more Americans into difficult decisions. Even Trump noted that he would negotiate better drug prices .... in several of his rambles. When medicaid was not allowed to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies .... you've got an oligopoly protected by Congress.
Here's how drugs are an oligopoly...
Drug manufacturers in the U.S. set their own prices, and that’s not the norm elsewhere in the world.
The US allows “government-protected monopolies” for certain drugs, preventing generics from coming to market to reduce prices.
The FDA takes a long time to approve generic drugs.
Sometimes, state laws and other “well-intentioned” federal policies limit generics’ abilities to keep costs down.Pharmacists in 26 states are required by law to get patient consent before switching to a generic drug, the authors wrote. This reportedly cost Medicaid $19.8 million dollars in 2006 for just one drug: a statin called simvastatin whose brand name is Zocor. Costs ran higher because pharmacists didn’t get patient consent and Medicaid had to pay for the costlier brand name drug even though a cheaper product was available.
http://time.com/money/4462919/prescript ... -too-high/
rayjay
Who should own the 18% of the US economy that provides health care?
The reason that 18% of your GDP is taken up by health care, is because of ideology.
In other countries its 9 to 12% ... Because people decided that
1) health care is a right, not a product or commodity.
2) regulation ensures that providers and service vendors can be profitable despite and sometimes because of regulation.
3) heath insurance companies provided administrative costs and overhead without providing value.
Administrative costs accounted for 25 percent of hospital spending in the United States, more than twice the proportion seen in Canada and Scotland, which spent the least on administration. Administrative costs were notably higher in the Netherlands (20%) than in other European nation.
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publica ... tive-costs