This stuff is SIMPLE...
MMDad said:
Don't forget supply and demand. If we have a million Kerad's going to Canada to get their little blue pill, the supplies dwindle and prices rise. All of this Canadian durg crap is a distraction from the real issue: How can we get reasonably priced drugs to consumers yet still allow enough profit incentives to the manufacturers so that they continue developing better drugs?
I don't have an answer, which is why I'm not in the library running for office.
Bruzilla and I covered this in our insurance conversation last week. His point is that if there is NO medical insurance, costs of EVERYTHING will come down to whatever the market, you and I, decide is acceptable, what we're willing to pay.
That sounds radical but it is true. You and I (most of us) don't pay for heart surgery or little blue pills; insurance does. If insurance is not paying for these things then all the other myriad costs associated with insurance, the whole food chain from lawyers to regulators, doctors, hospitals, nurses, office staff and so on and so forth dissapear.
How much would a bag of potato chips cost if you had some food plan at work that someone else paid for that also had that whole chain of people and entities involved, all looking to make a proft off of your chips?
Answer: Who cares? You don't ever see a bill. As far as you're concerned they cost whatever the co-pay is.
The true answer is that they'd cost a fortune compared to the market price that you and I are willing to pay now and people like Kerad would be loading up the Winnebago heading off to Moose Jaw to load up on cheaper Canadien chips if he didn't have a great insurance plan.
Now, my position is a compromise, somewhere in between. The full coverage insurance we have has resulted in the massively expensive system we have. Bruzillas plan is all the way the other way.
I say that a heart surgery is likely still gonna cost some pretty good change so, I want insurance that will cover the really expensive stuff and I will cover broken bones, dental, colds, flus, etc, etc.
I pay for that insurance level I choose. When we pay for things, market discipline works.
As it is, we have outstanding healthcare and medicine but it's all behind this wall of insurance which makes it a pain in the ass and way more expensive
than necessary.
The Kerads of the world only see the end result, not how we got here, so, it's easy to express that we have it wrong and Canada has it right. Canada has done nothing but subsidize. They haven't invented a pill or a precedure.
Simply take Kerads monthly insurance premium his company is paying and give it to him, if that is the case, and let him choose the type and level of insurance he wants, and pay for it. The market will then chase him and compete for him instead of the collusion of making deals with the government and big business and Canada.
We all know if someone else is paying for something for us, there is no free lunch. We gotta look past how cool our plan is and see the problems it makes for everyone else.
That's really a "bye" and not a "howdy". I also have a meeting to attend tonight and must sign off.
