Re:Why Some Doctors Purposely Misdiagnose Patients
by mcv on Friday January 24, 2020 @03:54AM
(#22136528)
The US health system is not as regulated as in other countries where health care costs are much lower.
The software market is a very different market from the health care market. An unregulated software market may not quite be a free market due to monopolies and vendor lock-in, but for consumers, it's quite possible to say no to any software purchase. That's not the case with health care, where often your options are to pay or die. That means that in a profit-driven health care market, prices can be raised indiscriminately, especially in the case of the US where health care prices are often kept hidden, because the people who can afford to, will pay anyway. There's better margins in providing health care to the rich than in providing it to the poor. It's profitable to let the poor go without healthcare.
This makes the healthcare market a very poor market to let be government primarily by a profit motive. Of course health care companies in other systems still make a profit, but they are very limited in how far they can rip off their customers compared to the US.
The software market is a very different market from the health care market. An unregulated software market may not quite be a free market due to monopolies and vendor lock-in, but for consumers, it's quite possible to say no to any software purchase. That's not the case with health care, where often your options are to pay or die. That means that in a profit-driven health care market, prices can be raised indiscriminately, especially in the case of the US where health care prices are often kept hidden, because the people who can afford to, will pay anyway. There's better margins in providing health care to the rich than in providing it to the poor. It's profitable to let the poor go without healthcare.
This makes the healthcare market a very poor market to let be government primarily by a profit motive. Of course health care companies in other systems still make a profit, but they are very limited in how far they can rip off their customers compared to the US.