patrick.net

This ought to be good...

So what does create free markets and lowers health care costs?

You could fit everything you know about economics on the head of a pin.

Competition creates high quality and low prices. Monopolies in either the private sector and of the public sector result in low quality, bad management, set pricing, fraud, and other ills.

The power of single paying:

Let's take an example of how these low costs work. In Denver, where I live, if you get an MRI of your neck region it's $1,200, and the doctor we visited in Japan says he gets $98 for an MRI. So how do you do that?

Well, in 2002 the government says that the MRIs, we are paying too much, so in order to be within the total budget, we will cut them by 35 percent.

If I'm a doctor, why don't I say, "I'm not going to do them; it's not enough money"?

You forgot that we have only one payment system. So if you want to do your MRIs, unless you can get private-pay patients, which is almost impossible in Japan, you go out of business. ...

Siemens and other makers of these machines pay kickbacks to hospitals to adopt the machines - and I suspect that insurance companies have interesting relationships with lab, MRI, etc. providers.

First off, NPR is hardly an unbiased source. It's an extremely liberal source. Second, unless we have upfront pricing, there is no free market in health care. I offer Lasek Surgery as an example of something in the medical field where it's a free market and the costs have come down over the years.

zzyzzx says

First off, NPR is hardly an unbiased source. It's an extremely liberal source. Second, unless we have upfront pricing, there is no free market in health care. I offer Lasek Surgery as an example of something in the medical field where it's a free market and the costs have come down over the years.

The person being interviewed is Japan's Top Health Economist explaining how Japan's system works: Government, Companies and Employees pay equal thirds a set premium, and all costs are negotiated down to the last degree by government for ALL providers. They pay by each square inch of stitches, regardless of what hospital or doctor performed it.

There will never be upfront pricing in the USA. Insurance Companies, Doctors, and Hospitals regard medical pricing as something secretive, the basis of their strategy and power.

While NPR could ask leading questions, there's absolutely no doubt when it comes to better outcomes at nearly half the cost, Japan KO's America's system in round one.