Some Thoughts on Healthcare

problem is if pharmaceutical companies produce at what you call the "socially optimal" level. i.e no abnormal profits then there are little incentives to pump funds into R&D

their marginal cost is so low but the initial development costs of new drugs is astronomical

You used a lot of words to say very little.

On August 23 2009 18:56 failsafe wrote: Doctors prices are pushed higher, making them unaffordable to the uninsured while the quantity of doctor's labor demanded by the insured remains unchanged.

Doctor's prices are not pushed higher because of expenses. Doctor's prices continue to rise because insurance companies continue to pay the bills. Expenses affect the profit margin, but prices are what the market will bear.

Because medical companies are essentially monopolies reaming public welfare

This is a bunch of dung, but it gives you a demon to fight against, to blame for everything, to sum it up in a neat little package.

government regulation of medical markets is absolutely necessary to achieving a socially optimal equilibrium. The breakdown of revenues and costs in medical markets is so far out of economic equilibrium that when I first read it I was hung up on the fact for days. What i'm referring to is neatly summed up in the fact that across the ENTIRE medical market, the mean after-tax accounting profit is over 20% of medical firms' revenues and costs balance.

so you propose a limit on the percentage of profit someone can make? Does that apply to you as a poker player? Should your profit be limited to what I judge to be a fair percentage? This is the kind of socialist crap the right gets so riled about. There is nothing wrong with making a buck if you can, this is America. Your defense against high prices is to not pay them. You can't expect to be provided services and then tell those providing them they can't make a profit at it.

On August 23 2009 18:56 failsafe wrote: medical insurance, at least as it exists today, doesn't even make sense. Insuring against buying monthly medication is pretty much the same as insuring against buying groceries. You insure against the possibility of a low-probability, high-impact event. You don't insure against relatively low-impact certainties. You don't insure against buying groceries. We shouldn't insure against monthly medication.

This is your best point, and it is an argument against the insurance 'tweaks' that are being bantered around right now. The same with pre-existing conditions . . . if you already have cancer, it isn't insurance against the unforeseen, it is an ineffective way of someone else paying your bills for you.

you have so much stamina

sick

edit: accidental double post