I think that there are spaces in healthcare where you could safely apply a free market. "Hey, yeah, I see you have a cane, but have you tried my super luxury high speed low drag jet-powered hover cane? Guaranteed to be 1000% more like a Nerf commercial than any standard cane!"
"Woah, check it out, we built an MRI that's way cheaper and doesn't scare the shit out of people!"
"Hey, I found a medicine that cures baldness!" Etc.
Right? I can see the intersection of luxury (in the sense that not buying it incurs no cost, not even an opportunity cost), convenience, and healthcare being a place where there's room for the free market. The problem is that we've gone and applied it to everything, including all kinds of things that shouldn't be free market. Then you end up with all kinds of goofy fucking bullshit like corporates parenting stuff that the DOD paid to develop (Epi Pens, vaccine adjuvants, etc), GSK opting to develop a singles vaccine instead of a tuberculosis vaccine, etc, etc, etc. Oh, that last one is real. Here: https://www.propublica.org/article/how-big-pharma-company-stalled-tuberculosis-vaccine-to-pursue-bigger-profits
This is probably an unpopular take on Lemmy, but I believe that free markets generally work well where they exist. But there's a lot of things that have no business being free markets, like healthcare, and aren't free markets (and won't behave like them) even if you try super hard to pretend that they are. You see, a truly free market requires the ability to say no and suffer no cost. You can buy Bob's Widget, Jan's Widget, or no Widget and be perfectly fine. This is not the case in healthcare. If you're having a heart attack, your choices are:
-Agree to pay for this widget but we can't/won't tell you how much it costs until we're done.
-Die
That's not a free market, that's not how free markets work.
My comment was a bit of a simplified hot take. And your perfectly valid reasons are why I didn't also throw housing and food right in there in the same take.
I think that there are spaces in healthcare where you could safely apply a free market. "Hey, yeah, I see you have a cane, but have you tried my super luxury high speed low drag jet-powered hover cane? Guaranteed to be 1000% more like a Nerf commercial than any standard cane!"
"Woah, check it out, we built an MRI that's way cheaper and doesn't scare the shit out of people!"
"Hey, I found a medicine that cures baldness!" Etc.
Right? I can see the intersection of luxury (in the sense that not buying it incurs no cost, not even an opportunity cost), convenience, and healthcare being a place where there's room for the free market. The problem is that we've gone and applied it to everything, including all kinds of things that shouldn't be free market. Then you end up with all kinds of goofy fucking bullshit like corporates parenting stuff that the DOD paid to develop (Epi Pens, vaccine adjuvants, etc), GSK opting to develop a singles vaccine instead of a tuberculosis vaccine, etc, etc, etc. Oh, that last one is real. Here: https://www.propublica.org/article/how-big-pharma-company-stalled-tuberculosis-vaccine-to-pursue-bigger-profits
This is probably an unpopular take on Lemmy, but I believe that free markets generally work well where they exist. But there's a lot of things that have no business being free markets, like healthcare, and aren't free markets (and won't behave like them) even if you try super hard to pretend that they are. You see, a truly free market requires the ability to say no and suffer no cost. You can buy Bob's Widget, Jan's Widget, or no Widget and be perfectly fine. This is not the case in healthcare. If you're having a heart attack, your choices are:
-Agree to pay for this widget but we can't/won't tell you how much it costs until we're done.
-Die
That's not a free market, that's not how free markets work.
My comment was a bit of a simplified hot take. And your perfectly valid reasons are why I didn't also throw housing and food right in there in the same take.
See... you kid, buuuuuut...
https://www.hurrycane.com/