As a physician, I can testify: This article nails the central problem that's driving our out-of-control healthcare costs. I call it the "consumer-payer disconnect," and give a slightly dated (2014) insider's view in "American Healthcare Unchained" (on Amazon).
Price opacity and third-party payment explain why a patient never sees a price. The household fact is simpler: the premium and the hospital bill both take hours from take-home before any choice is made. Care that never prints a price still costs a year's work.
I wonder if buying gym memberships or even allowing for businesses to write off wages, get a tax credit or some means of compensation for 1 hour a day of physical activity that they would pay their employees to work out would save money in the long run?
Great article. You get to the heart of the problem and explain things that hardly anyone can be bothered to discuss because it's that complicated and our discourses are so dominated by snappy one liners and memes. There's no time to explain what's wrong from a market perspective, so no one does it, no one has the bandwidth to bother. But you manage to lay it out in relatively simple terms (and it still takes a rather long article).
I think government-required transparent pricing by providers, employers being legally obliged to let their employees opt out of employer health plans and receive the balance in cash, and catastrophic medical insurance as a required option would do alot to restore markets to the health care sector.
As a physician, I can testify: This article nails the central problem that's driving our out-of-control healthcare costs. I call it the "consumer-payer disconnect," and give a slightly dated (2014) insider's view in "American Healthcare Unchained" (on Amazon).
Price opacity and third-party payment explain why a patient never sees a price. The household fact is simpler: the premium and the hospital bill both take hours from take-home before any choice is made. Care that never prints a price still costs a year's work.
I wonder if buying gym memberships or even allowing for businesses to write off wages, get a tax credit or some means of compensation for 1 hour a day of physical activity that they would pay their employees to work out would save money in the long run?
Great article. You get to the heart of the problem and explain things that hardly anyone can be bothered to discuss because it's that complicated and our discourses are so dominated by snappy one liners and memes. There's no time to explain what's wrong from a market perspective, so no one does it, no one has the bandwidth to bother. But you manage to lay it out in relatively simple terms (and it still takes a rather long article).
Great article.
I think government-required transparent pricing by providers, employers being legally obliged to let their employees opt out of employer health plans and receive the balance in cash, and catastrophic medical insurance as a required option would do alot to restore markets to the health care sector.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/employer-health-insurance-plans-should
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/medical-treatment-should-have-a-transparent
Brilliant article, thank you.