[ale] [OT] for the space geeks on ALE

Tom Freeman tfreeman at intel.digichem.net
Thu Jun 9 08:24:35 EDT 2011


On 06/08/2011 09:17 PM, Pat Regan wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Jun 2011 16:17:35 -0400
> Greg Clifton<gccfof5 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>    
>> Jeff,
>> I do agree with you as regards the SS comments. On the rest, if you
>> "like the Post Office...." People are people and motivated by the
>> same basically the same "greed"  whether it lust for  money
>> (business) or just lust for power (govt).  Regardless of the evils of
>> corporations/business, the one thing they CANNOT do is take your
>> money at the point of a gun which the government does. I'd rather
>> take my chances in the free market than in the government controlled
>> "single payer" system that we're headed towards. GC
>>      
> The trouble is that we don't have a free market health care system.
> The prices of medical care are set by what insurance companies are
> willing to pay.  The insurance companies are also in a better position
> to negotiate prices for services than I am.
>
> There seem to be two sections of the health care industry that are
> actually a free market, and the prices have been dropping for both
> types of service for a very long time.  Cosmetic surgery and corrective
> eye surgery.  The prices go down because the doctors are actually
> competing with each other for our dollars and customers have been
> shopping based on price.
>
> My grandfather started practicing medicine something like 60+ years
> ago.  That was before the days when everyone needed to have insurance
> to pay for medical care.  The stories I always heard implied that
> everyone in the neighborhood got proper care.  They paid what they
> could manage, but they weren't turned away.
>
> I'd be all for a free market for health care, like we had 60 years
> ago.  I don't know how possible it is to get back to that, though.
>
> Pat
> _____
>    
Ulm. You would need to go back further than 60 years ago to find free 
market medicine. For the life of me I can not recall the name of the 
law, but medical providers must provide a patient in distress first rate 
medical care without regards to the ability to pay. That requirement 
dates back to the middle 1930's or early 1940's if memory serves. (This 
requirement used to be posted in the Emergency Rooms of every hospital I 
was aware of.) The advantage to medicine of 60 years ago was it's 
relative lack of development - the patient developed one of many 
conditions and died.

It wasn't easy on the physicians either. Especially in the country, lots 
of doctors went bankrupt for taking on patients who couldn't pay their 
bills. (I knew three doctors in the early '70s where this was true, as I 
dated their daughters).


More information about the Ale mailing list