Includes a consumer information links, online message board, live chat, The Lattanze @ Package Sol

I think our healthcare system is a glaring example of how Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand does not always apply. Capitalism does not always work and when it does, i.e., competition stimulates productivity, then the consumer is screwed because of the increased costs. Do MD’s advertise? Not usually. No radiology or lab service publicly advertises their prices for services, noting that they are cheapest. There is no discount for volume for a chemo patient getting CBC’s, and they have many. The consumer is uniquely vulnerable to the person they seek care from. A classic example is the case of the individual who is uninsured and thus has to pay the outrageous fees that the company has “on the books”- not the fees negotiated to the big companies. There should be SET fees, for all. It should be illegal for quid pro quo’s.

HSA’s sound good on paper, but what about the diabetic, who does not see an MD ($$$), get an oral antibiotic, then ends up with sepsis in an ICU? How does that save money for anyone?

A month or so later I got a bill for $0.00. This was a good thing, since that is also the most I could afford at the time, for various reasons.

I like this health insurance. It was very clear that i went to the hospital, and had expensive tests and surgery for cause. In the mean time, my premiums are constant and predictable.

If they also required that i get some periodic checkup, and paid for that, then i’d get a periodic checkup. I hate them, because the doctor says “You are in good health”, and it is something that i already knew. So if doctors need baseline data, then i should be required to provide it, and it should be included in the plan. That is, I shouldn’t be penalized even $10 to do it.

And that’s my view of what a national health plan should provide. Not all HMOs behave this way. As a consultant, having worked for twenty employers and therefore having had that many health plans, I can attest to the idea that most of them aren’t any good.

And that’s criminal.

Orcinus discusses that the skinhead movement is on the rise again, but don’t fret. Following Bush’s lead, it is compassionate racism, a kinder, gentler movement.

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Rarely (if ever), do these folks point to great success stories of nationalized (or socialized, or, well, you pick the adjective) medicine.

I am not sure that is completely accurate. A better understanding of consumer-driven healthcare cost-containment would include the price-lowering effect competitive forces will have on suppliers of healthcare once such forces are induced by widespread HSA adoption.

Trapier K. Michael
http://www.Marketplace.MD
http://www.blog.marketplace.md

Jill Quadagno:

The presumption underlying the president’s plan is that the way we pay for health…

This is one of the only times I have ever been inspired to trackback a trackback, but Jill Quadagno has written an excellent post on Oxford University Press’ blog about the vector of health care costs in America. Everyone who…