Free Market
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Here is a thought experiment...
What if a single rich person could hire every doctor that there is - this doesn't just give them access to all existing legal healthcare but the right to control the creation of more (only doctors can make more doctors legally.) The market is not free, someone new is not allowed to just become a doctor by knowing doctor stuff, you have to have other doctors and political groups approve you. It's a gated thing. So, in theory, access to healthcare can be controlled by a single person without the ability to have competitors.
In a free market, that situation cannot arise. Someone could always invest the time, effort or money to compete. But in the current framework, it is completely possible although totally impractical, to literally buy up all healthcare and with non-competes literally shut down the healthcare systems totally if one so desired.
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@scottalanmiller what your missing though is that the doctors may choose to be hired by that person or not.
In addition there are monopoly laws, which oddly things like healthcare and the US Government are monopolies.
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@DustinB3403 said:
@scottalanmiller what your missing though is that the doctors may choose to be hired by that person or not.
Nope, not missing that. That doctors have a free market to sell their services is not in question, it is the people's right to get those services that is.
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@DustinB3403 said:
In addition there are monopoly laws, which oddly things like healthcare and the US Government are monopolies.
There are, and they don't get applied to healthcare specifically.
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OK speaking of patents - are you for or against them?
I'm thinking that in the free market areas that it's probably an OK if not really a good thing.
But I can definitely see where it hurts in the locked in areas like power, water, healthcare.
I Also now understand why healthcare isn't and can't currently be a free market thing, because it's all controlled tightly by the government.
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@DustinB3403 said:
@scottalanmiller what your missing though is that the doctors may choose to be hired by that person or not.
In addition there are monopoly laws, which oddly things like healthcare and the US Government are monopolies.
Sure there are monopoly laws, but some monoplies can't really be avoided - like power lines to your home. It's not tenable to have more than say 2 power companies run power to every house in most cities, and even two would represent a huge waste of resources.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@DustinB3403 said:
@scottalanmiller what your missing though is that the doctors may choose to be hired by that person or not.
Nope, not missing that. That doctors have a free market to sell their services is not in question, it is the people's right to get those services that is.
what do you mean people's right to get services? We have no rights to any service, at least not constitutionally.
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@Dashrender said:
OK speaking of patents - are you for or against them?
Mostly against and believe that they should, at most, be extremely limited to specific product categories and for extremely limited periods of time and very, very firm in their limits without exceptions. I believe that they should never apply to software or chemicals or other potentially natural things.
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@Dashrender said:
I Also now understand why healthcare isn't and can't currently be a free market thing, because it's all controlled tightly by the government.
That's only part of it. Even if the government was not involved at all, it's not eligible for the free market because it is not an optional service in the standard sense of the term.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I Also now understand why healthcare isn't and can't currently be a free market thing, because it's all controlled tightly by the government.
That's only part of it. Even if the government was not involved at all, it's not eligible for the free market because it is not an optional service in the standard sense of the term.
IE you don't get the doctor that wants to test something out on you versus using the proven method with side effects x, y and z?
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@DustinB3403 said:
@scottalanmiller what your missing though is that the doctors may choose to be hired by that person or not.
Nope, not missing that. That doctors have a free market to sell their services is not in question, it is the people's right to get those services that is.
what do you mean people's right to get services? We have no rights to any service, at least not constitutionally.
In a free market you have a right to attempt to get services. To be remotely a free market, that must exist. The situation exists here that people can actually be barred completely from healthcare. That no market would exist at all, free or otherwise.
The right to property is considered a natural law and superseding the Constitution requiring that it not be stated explicitly within it.
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@DustinB3403 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I Also now understand why healthcare isn't and can't currently be a free market thing, because it's all controlled tightly by the government.
That's only part of it. Even if the government was not involved at all, it's not eligible for the free market because it is not an optional service in the standard sense of the term.
IE you don't get the doctor that wants to test something out on you versus using the proven method with side effects x, y and z?
No, meaning that healthcare is not like a car. You need healthcare to live, you don't need a car to live. There is no desire to buy healthcare that you don't need, no way to test services and no choices when things are critical. Unless you have the ability to get to any hospital, see any doctor and agree on prices and services before you die or take permanent damage, there is nothing like a free market associated with healthcare.
This isn't about what is or isn't offered. It's about the intrinsic nature of healthcare. This isn't a statement about the US or any current system. It's about free markets and healthcare - the two are not related topics.
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But the right to receive life saving services exist, why shouldn't the right to receive any service exist?
You might have an infection that causes a constant 10/10 pain, but is otherwise non-life threatening. Should you be barred from receiving care for it, if the fix is to take a pill on a schedule?
Only because you can't afford the medication.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
OK speaking of patents - are you for or against them?
Mostly against and believe that they should, at most, be extremely limited to specific product categories and for extremely limited periods of time and very, very firm in their limits without exceptions. I believe that they should never apply to software or chemicals or other potentially natural things.
Software I completely agree upon, because I believe that the test of 'people that work in that industry would often come to the same conclusion' aka it's obvious.
Would the same be true in chemicals?
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@DustinB3403 said:
But the right to receive life saving services exist, why shouldn't the right to receive any service exist?
Right to receive but not the right to negotiate the price, who provides it, etc. If you are unconscious or are dying quickly, you must take what is offered. It's not a free market.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@DustinB3403 said:
But the right to receive life saving services exist, why shouldn't the right to receive any service exist?
Right to receive but not the right to negotiate the price, who provides it, etc. If you are unconscious or are dying quickly, you must take what is offered. It's not a free market.
Sure it is, you sign a DNR card.
Services declined.
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@Dashrender said:
Would the same be true in chemicals?
It's a chemical. It just "is" something. Would you let someone patent oxygen? Water? DNA? When would you and when wouldn't you?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Would the same be true in chemicals?
It's a chemical. It just "is" something. Would you let someone patent oxygen? Water? DNA? When would you and when wouldn't you?
You wouldn't allow someone to patent something that is found everywhere. That can be found "in the wild" and without processing.
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@DustinB3403 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@DustinB3403 said:
But the right to receive life saving services exist, why shouldn't the right to receive any service exist?
Right to receive but not the right to negotiate the price, who provides it, etc. If you are unconscious or are dying quickly, you must take what is offered. It's not a free market.
Sure it is, you sign a DNR card.
Services declined.
No, that's not related. DNR is a declination of healthcare, not a negotiation for needed healthcare. Totally unrelated.
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@DustinB3403 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Would the same be true in chemicals?
It's a chemical. It just "is" something. Would you let someone patent oxygen? Water? DNA? When would you and when wouldn't you?
You wouldn't allow someone to patent something that is found everywhere. That can be found "in the wild" and without processing.
But we do currently
How do you prove that nothing coming from pharmas doesn't exist in the wild? Often it does. Or often they find it later. Or they just modify something trivial to say that it doesn't. How does one determine which chemicals exists or are just theoretical? Does a patent dissolve if someone finds it in the wild? It's a slippery slope.
