The "free" market and health care

[Puzzler]

If the so-called free market is supposed to work, then here's a simple question: why hasn't it for almost 50 million Americans who don't have health insurance?

Yeah, I know the answer. But, I'm sick and tired of the free-market gurus telling us how government is not the answer. OK then, fine. But then, why hasn't the free market worked? And how many more years (decades) are American people supposed to wait until the "free" market works?

Of course, the answer is that it has worked. But not in any way that is fair and affordable to a huge number of people.

[Oregone]

1. The free market is only concerned with profits

Not producing a quality product at an affordable point. They will sell the least at the most profitable price point to only the amount of people that can afford it.

[GreenTea]

2. They been using that same "47 to 50 million" uninsured figure for

over eight years....

So now they are giving us more bullshit with this "50 million" uninsured figure....they've been using & quoting that 47 million uninsured figure since 2001.....(not to mention the millions of under-insured people who get very little for their outrageously priced insurance).

It's all bullshit the figure is much much higher than 50 million as well!

As if the total numbered of uninsured people hasn't gone up by tens of millions since 2001 (just consider the past eight years of Bush & the republicans..... Along with this current republican caused recession).....that 47 million figure has been going up every day for years.

2001 is when the corporate compliant media first started using that "47 million" uninsured figure, perhaps it was true in 2001 but that figure is certainly NOT accurate now, nor is the "50 million" figure....it's most likely 100 million uninsured along with tens of millions more under-insured!

We Want Single-Payer Universal Health Care - NOW!

[sandnsea]

3. Add the 40% on Medicaid, Medicare, IHS, VA

It's somewhere in that neighborhood. I don't have that figure but somebody needs to add the number of public employees with health care, the people on some kind of government health program, and the uninsured, and get that number. That's what we're really talking about.

[baldguy]

4. The answer, of course, is that the free market HAS worked.

As with any relatively scarce commodity, not everyone who wants it can afford it.

Doesn't it make you glad that oxygen & gravity aren't subject to the free market?

[ejpoeta]

7. yet.

i don't know if you've ever seen 'total recall'... but in that they have to pay for air on Mars, and they shut off the air for a certain area for some reason. scary thought.

[unblock]

5. free markets are not supposed to lead to 100% availability.

if there's a location where it's not profitable to open a store, then the people who live there don't have a nearby store.
if there's an address that fedex deems to costly to service, they won't deliver there.

free marketeers would say that in the long run, people who live in these remote regions (such as inner cities :sarcasm:) either move or are compensated for the lack of service through the value or cost of the land or other local amenities.

that works well enough when you're talking about pizza delivery, but not so much when you're talking about health care.

people without insurance lack insurance because the free market has deemed them unprofitable. the free market is literally saying it's more efficient to train surgeons to do elective cosmetic procedures for rich people than to save lives of poor people. and people who get elective cosmetic procedures are voting with their dollars, again, to steer surgeons away from saving the lives of poor people.

i don't mind the free market when it comes to allocation of EXCESS resources, e.g., quality-of-life and elective procedures. but basic preventative, corrective, restorative, emergency, and life-saving care OUGHT to be treated as a basic human right.


what REALLY drives the point home is that we ALL benefit from this. the rich person who enjoys elective surgery might later contract anfectious disease from a contagious poor person who couldn't afford proper treatment. WE ALL BENEFIT from universal health care.

[ejpoeta]

6. well, if the free market is the answer... then we should shut down all the fire houses and police

houses and let private enterprises handle it. after all, they can do a better job, can't they. wonder how much it will cost. i can see it now... well, we can't fight the fire at your residence because we don't accept your insurance. you'll have to go in network, and your in network provider is fifty miles away. sorry.

[Blue Meany]

8. The same reason the free market hasn't ended hunger...

It doesn't really respond to demand; it responds to money.