Price Info not a cure for health care costs?

[vnatale]

No argument on that. But the voters do put the politicians in office who approve these subsidies. Same as they subsidize a huge corporation coming to their city or state.

My point was simply that pro athletes' salaries aren't strictly market-based. (I was addressing your comment that "Athletes are not overpaid. They are paid what the [sic] are worth in a market based economy.")

In other words, it's not simply supply and demand that determines pro athletes' salaries. Because taxpayer dollars heavily subsidize pro sports stadiums as I explained, I think a case can be made that pro athletes -- or at least the highest-paid ones -- are probably "overpaid" in the sense of being paid more than they likely would without the taxpayer subsidy.

Do we have any pure markets unaffected by government actions in a positive way?

Vinny

[boglerdude]

Gov needs to fund basic science because its a money loser.

AMA is a cartel restricting supply of doctors
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/c ... rs_why_do/

[vnatale]

Steve Forbes is quite excited over all that is in this book:

The Cure That Works: How to Have the World's Best Healthcare -- at a Quarter of the Price Hardcover – June 18, 2019
by Sean Masaki Flynn Ph.D. (Author)

https://smile.amazon.com/The-Cure-That- ... l_huc_item

His accompanying article:


Superb Healthcare At Ultra-Low Prices? How Singapore Does It

https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbe ... eee0bd3add


"Can you imagine the United States having a health care system that delivers better outcomes than those we get today at a cost that is 75% less? That number is not a misprint or a fantasy; it’s the reality in Singapore, where there is universal coverage. Life expectancy is 85, more than five years better than in the U.S. Decades ago, Singapore seriously lagged the U.S; now, infant mortality is lower and other medical metrics in the city-state are also better than they are here.

Doctors and health-care practitioners are every bit as good in Singapore as they are here, or just about anywhere else in the world. Many get trained in the U.S. or at top-flight schools elsewhere. The nation is always scouring the world for best practices and cutting-edge technologies. That’s right—Singapore’s hospitals and clinics don’t hesitate to buy the latest and the best equipment and devices.

The Cure That Works
©2015 STEPHEN WEBSTER
Just look at the prices of medical procedures in Singapore. In the U.S. heart-bypass surgery will set you (and your insurer) back some $130,000. In Singapore? $18,000. A hip replacement costs 72% less and a heart valve 92% less.

Drug prices there are a fraction of ours. Insurance premiums are inexpensive—about $50 for those under 20 years of age and a little more than $1,000 a year for those in their late 80s. Moreover, if you pursue bad habits, such as overeating or smoking, your premiums go up. Unlike in the U.S., individuals pay for the policy, so it’s portable, not tied to their jobs. Therefore, Singa­pore has a robust individual-insurance market.

Does Singapore accomplish this by underpaying physicians? Nope. The after-tax incomes (Singapore’s income-tax rates are a fraction of ours) of general practitioners and specialists are about equal. And docs in Singapore aren’t plagued by malpractice costs or countless hours spent filling out insurance forms.

As this year’s election campaign heats up, the issue of health-care costs will come to the fore again. Unfortunately, the issue will be cast as the system we have today versus some version of a European-style single-payer system. Neither model resembles what Singapore does. So what does that country do?

Sean Masaki Flynn’s extraordinarily important—and, so far, largely ignored—book The Cure That Works (Regnery, $28.99) gives the answers in straightforward prose. You’ll be rubbing your eyes in disbelief: Health care can indeed be inexpensive, first-rate and easily accessible to everyone.

The bottom line: Capitalism with safety nets works! Singapore has the most free-market-oriented medical system anywhere.

The U.S., in contrast, has a third-party system—providers, patients and insurers/government. And it’s the third parties that are the drivers here. Hospitals, for instance, know their revenues depend more on how well they negotiate with insurers than on how well they satisfy patients. This leads to the utterly strange situation of prices almost never being posted!"

[D1984]

Steve Forbes is quite excited over all that is in this book:

The Cure That Works: How to Have the World's Best Healthcare -- at a Quarter of the Price Hardcover – June 18, 2019
by Sean Masaki Flynn Ph.D. (Author)

https://smile.amazon.com/The-Cure-That- ... l_huc_item

His accompanying article:


Superb Healthcare At Ultra-Low Prices? How Singapore Does It

https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbe ... eee0bd3add


"Can you imagine the United States having a health care system that delivers better outcomes than those we get today at a cost that is 75% less? That number is not a misprint or a fantasy; it’s the reality in Singapore, where there is universal coverage. Life expectancy is 85, more than five years better than in the U.S. Decades ago, Singapore seriously lagged the U.S; now, infant mortality is lower and other medical metrics in the city-state are also better than they are here.

Doctors and health-care practitioners are every bit as good in Singapore as they are here, or just about anywhere else in the world. Many get trained in the U.S. or at top-flight schools elsewhere. The nation is always scouring the world for best practices and cutting-edge technologies. That’s right—Singapore’s hospitals and clinics don’t hesitate to buy the latest and the best equipment and devices.

The Cure That Works
©2015 STEPHEN WEBSTER
Just look at the prices of medical procedures in Singapore. In the U.S. heart-bypass surgery will set you (and your insurer) back some $130,000. In Singapore? $18,000. A hip replacement costs 72% less and a heart valve 92% less.

Drug prices there are a fraction of ours. Insurance premiums are inexpensive—about $50 for those under 20 years of age and a little more than $1,000 a year for those in their late 80s. Moreover, if you pursue bad habits, such as overeating or smoking, your premiums go up. Unlike in the U.S., individuals pay for the policy, so it’s portable, not tied to their jobs. Therefore, Singa­pore has a robust individual-insurance market.

Does Singapore accomplish this by underpaying physicians? Nope. The after-tax incomes (Singapore’s income-tax rates are a fraction of ours) of general practitioners and specialists are about equal. And docs in Singapore aren’t plagued by malpractice costs or countless hours spent filling out insurance forms.

As this year’s election campaign heats up, the issue of health-care costs will come to the fore again. Unfortunately, the issue will be cast as the system we have today versus some version of a European-style single-payer system. Neither model resembles what Singapore does. So what does that country do?

Sean Masaki Flynn’s extraordinarily important—and, so far, largely ignored—book The Cure That Works (Regnery, $28.99) gives the answers in straightforward prose. You’ll be rubbing your eyes in disbelief: Health care can indeed be inexpensive, first-rate and easily accessible to everyone.

The bottom line: Capitalism with safety nets works! Singapore has the most free-market-oriented medical system anywhere.

The U.S., in contrast, has a third-party system—providers, patients and insurers/government. And it’s the third parties that are the drivers here. Hospitals, for instance, know their revenues depend more on how well they negotiate with insurers than on how well they satisfy patients. This leads to the utterly strange situation of prices almost never being posted!"

The two main reason's Singapore's healthcare costs are lower than ours are:

One, the government owns/operates/runs seven or eight general hospitals (and IIRC a specialty cardiac hospital, a specialty ob/gyn hospital, and a specialty cancer hospital on top of that) throughout Singapore; these hospitals offer medical care at prices that are rock-bottom compared to the US (for instance, a heart bypass at between $18K and maybe $22K depending on the hospital vs around $85K to $130K here in the US). This means that the other nine (private i.e. not government-owned) hospitals (Gleneagles, Mt. Elizabeth, Raffles, etc) can charge "only" around maybe $25K to $45K for the same heart bypass or else they would have almost no customers. The same pretty much applies for every major inpatient medical service across the board. If we had Singapore's medical care prices our costs would plummet even if we kept our current wasteful health insurance system and otherwise did nothing else to change anything.

Two, massive differences in demographics, population, public health factors, behavioral factors, etc. They have a population that is somewhat younger
than ours (although this is changing rapidly.....by 2098 or 2099 their population is expected to be even older than Japan's at the time unless they massively increase immigration; Singapore has one of the lowest TFRs in the developed world), majority ethnically Chinese (if you look at the US's population of Asians in general and Chinese in particular they tend to have longer lifespans and better health outcomes than Americans overall), more in-shape than ours (people walk and use public transit more since cars are incredibly expensive due to COE, import fees, GST, ARF, VES/emissions fee, etc...suffice to say a car that costs, say $28K in the US could cost $140K or more in Singapore....oh, and speaking of being in better shape.....every Singaporean male has to do two years of National Service and even after that has to--at least on paper--stay in military shape at least to age 40 when his reservist obligation ends), have much less violent death per thousand people than we do (much lower crime overall due to it basically being a nanny state/police state, almost no gun crime due to draconian gun laws, less car accidents since many Singaporeans can't afford cars thanks to the taxes and fees, etc), have less cancer/drug overdoes/alcoholism than we do (thanks to crazy harsh drug laws and sky-high taxes on alcohol and tobacco...and also due to they don't have pharma companies pushing opiod overprescription like some parts of the US do), etc. If the US had all of the above (which is never going to happen and nor would I want it to happen....I don't think many Americans would, actually) I'd bet our public health indicators would soar even if we changed nothing else about our health care and health insurance system.

I would also like to note that IIRC Singapore's compulsory government-run basic health insurance system (Medishield Life) does not directly charge smokers or the overweight more per se; they DO make you pay maybe a third more than a standard premium for the first ten years you are insured if you happen to have certain pre-existing conditions; if smoking or being obese has given you one of those conditions then they charge you more but if it hasn't you get charged the same as anyone else in your age bracket. This does NOT apply to private Integrated Shield policies (which some two-thirds of Singapore's population has) nor to private "critical illness policies" or "accident policies" (which are more popular over there than they are here); both of those types of policies would almost certainly charge you more based on smoking or being above a certain BMI......but for the basic government-run health insurance everyone has to buy there is not a surcharge merely for having an unhealthy habit.