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Re:Why Sleep Apnea Patients Rely on a CPAP Machine Hacker by aidenn0 on Thursday November 15, 2018 @05:10PM (#18463933)
That's not how free markets work. Otherwise food would also cost everything you own.
Re:Why Sleep Apnea Patients Rely on a CPAP Machine Hacker by rocqua on Thursday November 15, 2018 @06:16PM (#18464406)
Any kind of food will do to prevent starvation given a slight mix. So, if you won't sell me potato's for a decent price, I'll just get rice from somewhere else.

In medicine, you tend to need very specific treatments. This means the set of potential suppliers is much lower, which essentially means the supply is restricted. If you won't sell me an epi-pen for less than 100 dollars, there aren't a lot of places I can turn to. Moreover it's not like open-heart surgery is going to work.

Besides, some procedures are just actually expensive. Open-heart surgery takes a lot of labor, organ transplants require intense logistics. Dialysis is a complex and repetitive procedure. The 'fair price' for these in the economic sense is still high. Way to high for most people's morality.

Should people really have to chose between death and the bankruptcy of their entire family? Because in a functioning free market, it is near essential that some people have demand for something they can't pay for. So if we turn dialysis, heart surgery, etc. into free markets, there are going to be people who need those treatments that cannot pay for them.

Re:Why Sleep Apnea Patients Rely on a CPAP Machine Hacker by brokenmachine on Thursday November 15, 2018 @11:12PM (#18466339)
> So if we turn dialysis, heart surgery, etc. into free markets, there are going to be people who need those treatments that cannot pay for them.

Isn't that exactly what happens now?

Re:Why Sleep Apnea Patients Rely on a CPAP Machine Hacker by IshKebab on Thursday November 15, 2018 @05:23PM (#18464038)
Poor analogy. Food is not generally patented, and people can eat many different kinds of food to live.

Would you tell the people that needed epipens "well just have some paracetamol instead".

Re:Why Sleep Apnea Patients Rely on a CPAP Machine Hacker by Zak on Thursday November 15, 2018 @05:48PM (#18464218)
In a free market, there would be cheap generic alternatives. Epinephrine itself isn't expensive at all (around a dollar a dose), and the autoinjector was patented in 1977, making it long-expired (though modifications of the design are covered by newer patents).

There are other examples, such as complex surgeries that would illustrate the point you're trying to make better.

Re:Why Sleep Apnea Patients Rely on a CPAP Machine Hacker by jamiek88 on Thursday November 15, 2018 @05:27PM (#18464061)
Anyone can grow food thus price floor in normal times (and yes everything you own in times of great famine. Diamonds for tripe in WW2 Polish ghettos). Can’t grow a new lung.