I didn't specify any specific procedure, but no it doesn't stand to reason. There are cardiac care facilities, that specialize in cardiac care. A new one went up across the highway from me recently. It is a building specifically for cardiac procedures and recovery. Not all procedures are done in a hospital. Thus you'd get the rate for the cardiac care center, which would charge "fair market value" compared to other cardiac care centers. Hell, your new plan might well increase the number of such places, and start getting other branches to make their own facilities as well. New chances for hidden charges.
Conversely, single payer solutions might shrink the number of such places, increase wait times for such procedures, and lower quality of care across the board. Heck, the ACA has
already caused problems with doctors deciding this is a good time to get out, and fewer new med students are enrolling. The scuttlebutt seems to be we're already on our way to a doctor shortage.
And how would you do that, if they were in fact charging you roughly the same cost as everyone else? A price that no one needed to compete on because it wasn't something most people knew to factor in? And even if they knew, were unlikely to find anyone willing to cut a deal on anything but the base price. There's no magic way to set up a system as complicated as healthcare where all the pricing is upfront, transparent, and based on informed consumers choosing the best price. There are too many patients who need to be cared for who don't have a chance to comparison shop, too many cases where there is no comparable case to standardize price on, too many ethical concerns.
Well, the obvious answer is that you simply remove the distinction between the "specialist pricing" and the "hospital pricing." It doesn't matter if I get a Widget from Best Buy or WidgetsSpeciality Mom'n'pop, fair market value is the value set in the market, not by the specialist. Yes, there's no "magic way to solve everything," but there are common sense ways to make things better than they are. And there IS a magic way to ruin everything - and that's single payer.
But I'm growing tired of trying to explain to you that every system is vulnerable to corruption. You seem to think that businesses can be forced to act in the public's best interest, and that somehow the government can force businesses to do this, but the government can't act on the government in the same way. It boggles my mind to think that you draw such a bizarre distinction.
"We've investigated ourselves and have determined that we have done nothing wrong." Government has a terrible record in policing itself. And yes, business has a terrible record in policing itself. It's in everyone's best interest to keep the oversight separate from the action. What boggles
my mind is why you think government has your best interests at heart any more than any business. The big difference is there are things that can be done to address a business acting in bad faith - when the government is the only game in town, and IT turns south, we're all gonna have a bad time.
I just think it's ridiculous that you think your system has figured out all the angles, and that other systems are incapable of doing so.
I never said I had "all the angles" figured out, I'm just pointing out it's possible to improve things through capitalism (with, yes, government oversight) - and that what we currently have is
not that. There is no economic force on earth that can match a properly working marketplace, it's what made our nation hegemonic.
Illegal doesn't stop companies from doing it, especially if they have the means to fight it in court.
Suits Say Wal-Mart Forces Workers to Toil Off the Clock
Wal-Mart Workers Win Wage Suit
It's clear that this is something that companies do if they can avoid repercussions from it. And it's clear exploitation.
There's also the
on-going suits regarding Wal-mart refusing to make accommodations for pregnant workers.
Wal-mart's an excellent example of what happens when a single entity becomes a monolithic force against competition. Now, imagine it was run by the government - so that there was absolutely no recourse for addressing the exact same concerns, short of armed revolution.
Entire government is a shell game.
Well, you'll not get argument from me on that. But how does that make the ACA not insolvent?
The obvious answer is that with my current understanding of time there will be no Trump political appointees on whatever board oversees the program.
It was more of a hypothetical meant to drive home the fact that governments are just as subject to corruption and malice as businesses, only with less options for redress. Call it what you will, trump supporters, appointees made by trump allies, whatever. When the only game in town becomes run by those who want to punish you politically, how comfortable does it make you? What about when, say, Trump decides that ICE needs to have a more active role in the medical procedure approval panels?
But a more nuanced point would be that I trust that political appointees that hate social security will send the checks out on time or that political appointees who hate Medicare will make sure that hospitals get paid. You build a strong institution and it'll weather the political appointees.
Wow. I sure don't. And if that "strong institution will weather the political appointees" thing was true, there wouldn't be so many ulcers being grown over Trump's SC nominees.
Oh I'm not saying that there aren't problems with the VA. But I don't want to dismantle the ICBM portion of the nuclear triad just because they are all hopped up on meth and cheating on their readiness tests. I think the Navy needs some work because their ships keep on ramming other bigger ships because the sailors are too tired to think straight. Nor do I want to dismantle the military because they have a tendancy to murder reporters and MSF doctors and then cover up the fuck up. Nor do I think hospitals should be shut down for kicking out patients onto the streets when it's illegal for them to do so.
Well, I can't speak to the things about the military, but at what point DOES it become appropriate to shut down a hospital for malfeasance? And is that easier to do with a private hospital, or a government hospital?
