No, they are saying medicine is necessary unlike restaurants.
But further, medicine has extremely low competition at all levels. There are few companies producing penicillin, you likely don't have a lot of options for hospital care (especially if you need a specialist), and your insurance was likely not something you picked.
Compare that to food, where you can get it from multiple grocery stores, gas stations, or even order it online. If you are in a place with 1 restaurant it's highly likely there are 10 competing restaurants. Heck, if you have some land you can even grow your own food in a garden.
Medicine is a necessity with few providers which makes it a particularly bad fit for capitalism. It can't be made cheaper or more available by cutting regulations. They are necessary to keep the industry from killing people.
> they are saying medicine is necessary unlike restaurants.
But not unlike supermarkets, which were also mentioned.
> Medicine is a necessity with few providers which makes it a particularly bad fit for capitalism
Medicine does not have few providers because of "capitalism". It has few providers because of regulation that artificially limits the supply of providers. In a free market, the market would provide whatever supply of providers is needed to meet people's health care needs in the most efficient way. But regulation prevents that from happening.
> They are necessary to keep the industry from killing people.
Yet somehow we manage to have regulations to prevent food from killing people, without restricting the supply of supermarkets, and without impairing competition among them. We could do the same for health care.
Supermarkets is exactly what I had in mind, but perhaps it was stupid.
The cost of health care is kind of… a×b+c×d, except more complicated, where a is the hourly cost of a physician, b is the number of times you get an hour's care, c is the cost of a pill and d is the number of pills you get. Want the total sum to decrease? Then pick which one of a, b, c and d you want to decrease, and look at whether competition can help. A lot of this thread sounds like just "private equity is evil and therefore guilty", nothing to do with goal-directed efficacy.
> Then pick which one of a, b, c and d you want to decrease, and look at whether competition can help.
We already know the answer to this: competition can help decrease a and c, and even b and d might be fair game since competition in preventive care and preventive information can increase its effectiveness, which in turn reduces people's overall need for health care.
> Medicine does not have few providers because of "capitalism". It has few providers because of regulation that artificially limits the supply of providers. In a free market, the market would provide whatever supply of providers is needed to meet people's health care needs in the most efficient way. But regulation prevents that from happening.
I would say medicine has few providers because of -
1. economies of scale for medication - meaning a Bayer selling 10 million motrin/ibuprofen can undercut LocalPharma if they tried to comptete - and 1
2. because of more complex factors for docs/nurses, possibly regulations but also difficult and poorly structured studies/residencies & poor market structure.
> Yet somehow we manage to have regulations to prevent food from killing people, without restricting the supply of supermarkets, and without impairing competition among them. We could do the same for health care.
It is probably possible for a half-competent person to run a mom and pop store with just a few thousand dollars of revenue, and maybe 2-3 months (maybe less if you have your own farm). Even a small medical setup like a dentist's clinic or a doctor's office needs years more of expensive education plus possibly trained staff (technicians/nurses etc).
The entry of barrier to healthcare is extremely high. However unlike how you can just go to a different store if you don't like the prices in one place, in medicine if a drug is made by 1 company and it costs $$$ you don't have many options. You can substitute tomatoes for potatoes but can't with meds.
There are a lot of fields where free markets with minimal/no regulations are very helpful, but medicine is not one of them.
But further, medicine has extremely low competition at all levels. There are few companies producing penicillin, you likely don't have a lot of options for hospital care (especially if you need a specialist), and your insurance was likely not something you picked.
Compare that to food, where you can get it from multiple grocery stores, gas stations, or even order it online. If you are in a place with 1 restaurant it's highly likely there are 10 competing restaurants. Heck, if you have some land you can even grow your own food in a garden.
Medicine is a necessity with few providers which makes it a particularly bad fit for capitalism. It can't be made cheaper or more available by cutting regulations. They are necessary to keep the industry from killing people.