Friday, March 24, 2006

Health Care: Manipulated Market

I don’t know that any society has ever had a free market, completely free. Yet any society will have some areas of the market freer than others. You go into a restaurant. More often than not there’s a menu. Coffee, seventy-five cents; hamburger two bucks ... You have an idea what it will add up to. Then there’s the tax: but you may know what that will be. Tipping also complicates things but most people deal with it.

The good Samaritan finds a homeless guy, looks like he’s starving. He takes him to a restaurant, pours food into him. Who should be expected to pay? The homeless guy? or the Samaritan?

The good Samaritan finds a homeless guy run over in the road. He takes him to the hospital. They put the guy in IC, keep him a month. Who gets the bill? Was there a menu? Was the guy conscious when the choices were made?

The hospital knows perfectly well that some patients won’t be able to pay. So they jack up all the prices. Get it where they can, when they can, pass the rest to the public. What? Do you think the hospital owner should be at risk?

But the kleptocracy is rigged so that enormous pressure will be put on the out patient to pay -- for what he never ordered, never knew the price. The guy is in hock till he pays, permanently screwed if he doesn’t.

If the cop brings you to the hospital, why don’t they send your bill to the cop?