Well said. We are now 10 + years into the ACA and all the state run crap that goes with it . I have a bunch of friends who are doctors and say they would not go into medicine and advise their children to not go into medicine. Maybe the silver lining with Covid is it finally breaks the back of our healthcare system. Personally, I would like to buy a subscription into a hospital chain or concierge medical service(of which some already exist) and pay the docs directly.
Direct Primary Care, available by monthly membership model, includes labs and many meds at wholesale, small things like stitches for lacerations, broken bones, etc.
Then, a small catastrophic care ins policy to cover majors like cancer or heart surgery.
Love the article but disagree privatizing is the answer; it's the path that led here. What we need is independent regulatory oversight and universal health care, not a for profit model run by lawyers and bureaucrats. A return to using Precautionary Principle wouldn't hurt either.
Today's US healthcare landscape--significantly occupied by HMOs and health "insurance" which is not, in form, insurance at all--is private mainly only in that it is not "publicly owned." What is sorely missing is the "private exchange" of medical services by an independent provider, for compensation, with an independent recipient of services.
The patient is no longer the customer, or even the real beneficiary, in these large bureaucratic systems. Many patients only engagement on costs of medical alternatives only after the course of treatment is complete, or already long underway, when the adjusted and insurance-portion paid bills start rolling in. Some providers even try to hide costs, particularly if they are fully covered, from the patients. Cost-benefit discussions prior to treatment are relatively rare, and course of treatment selection is often pre-ordained by what is "covered."
What we have, for many people, is Employer-paid and third-party managed "healthcare," in which patients and providers are effectively cost centers. The complete story of how we got here is no doubt a long one, but a major impetus was Federal Government intervention in the economy in WW II. Employers under strict wage controls could not adequately compete for high value employees, so high value benefits like comprehensive healthcare were added as a way around--a legal loophole in the rules. Employer-sponsored healthcare got a major boost. Some large and (presumably) unintended consequences persist.
"Privatization" need not involve huge corporations controlling the healthcare sector. But it would need to include more freedom for patients to control their own healthcare spending (and benefit from any savings) and more freedom for doctors to practice as they see fit. And more transparency for informed consent and rational-basis care decisions.
Government regulation that promotes freedom for patients and practitioners, as well as transparency and ethical business practices, generally provides benefit. Regulation that tries to predict the future, steer an industry, favor certain technologies or specialties, or the like is much less likely to be beneficial (or ethical).
all of the above is spot on... ‘UNIVERSAL’ healthcare, like ‘UBI’ and ‘PUBLIC EDUCATION’ is a recipe for BUREAUCRATIC BLOAT & MORE CORRUPTION... precisely because these are CENTRALIZED MODELS which concentrate money & power... decentralization way, way, way better... 💕💕💕💕💕💕
Well said! Interesting that Brownstone posted the article on their site and deleted that last paragraph about privatization as the solution. I'm glad they did because it's the weakest part in an otherwise excellent essay. I will share the Brownstone version but not this version.
Perhaps I didn't convey it clearly. I'm just trying to say, in a free market, which doctor would you choose? The doctor who offers you a $3,120 ineffective treatment, tells you to wait for the vaccine, and withholds information about safe off-patent treatments? Or the doctor who informs you of studies showing benefit in a several drugs that are proven to be safe: Ivermectin ($29), Fluvoxamine ($4), Vitamin D ($4), Intravenous Vitamin C ($75)?
We can have a debate about whether private or public healthcare is better for society at large. My point is simply that this dilemma does not arise within a truly free healthcare market.
"I'm just trying to say, in a free market, which doctor would you choose? "
This has nothing to do with free markets nor any hint of real world conditions. You can't compare choosing doctors to buying toilet paper with labels that disclose a uniform basis to contrast them.
As a Nation we have been conditioned to view doctors like soothsayers divining Rx potions or ritual process to heal us. As a profession our medical providers have been schooled to think in terms of pharmacological answers to every problem and to trust in the peer reviewed journals as gospel.
The term "free market" is among the most abused misnomers in the political lexicon. Mega corps spend millions for lobbying and get billions in pork filled legislation that protects obscene markups on patent protected drugs. In a free market consumers would have the $30 Epi-Pen generic and $800 dollar option both stocked at their pharmacy. Monopolies and cartels control supply and enjoy extortionist pricing which is what we have.
Expanding corporate power and profit potential will only exacerbate the problems. Public health should not be driven by profit it should be designed to be self sustaining. Under the flag of free markets small rural hospitals have been decimated as "health care" corps select hubs of operation and plan services like one more Starbucks based on demographics, traffic and overhead.
I appreciate the effort to find greater equity but your fundamental premises about economic function are unfounded and fly in the face of real world results.
Pamela, all of the problems you are describing are in line with problems I, and other commenters, have laid out. As you say, the industry is run by "bureaucrats", "lobbyists", and "monopolies". The lobbyists use the bureaucrats to secure their monopolies. How do they do this? By influencing FDA, NIH, & CDC officials (see examples in my bullet list at the start of the article). If you need more, note that "9 out of the last 10 FDA commissioners—representing nearly four decades of agency leadership—have gone on to work for pharmaceutical companies."
The power originates from government. We are aware that corporations want to stamp out competition and gouge prices. The presence of a regulatory body with police power over an industry is what allows corporations to achieve those goals at our expense. In a free market, they have no power over what a doctor may/may not prescribe (FDA approval liability), another company's drug development process (regulatory hurdles), and price gouging allows competitors to undercut. So, actually, in a free market you could choose a doctor like you choose toilet paper (though obviously you would give it more consideration).
Another point of miscommunication in the various replies on this thread is that we have NOT been operating under a free market in healthcare in a VERY long time, so the system you are criticizing is not a free market. You are correct in saying the free market "is the path that led here", but that is the fault of government officials who allowed themselves to be corrupted. You cannot hope to extinguish the greed of each and every individual who wishes to game the system for profit. It is more feasible to elect a government with limited powers and nominate officials with integrity who will not be seduced into providing special favors.
This discussion is quite complex for a comment thread, but you have motivated me to do more research in this area. Perhaps I will write a piece on how our healthcare system has evolved through history into its current form.
I really appreciate all who are participating in these thoughtful discussions.
We agree until you get to this which was either mis-stated by me or misread by you. "You are correct in saying the free market "is the path that led here", but that is the fault of government officials who allowed themselves to be corrupted."
Any real free markets were disappearing since the days of the Robber Barons and evaporating at an accelerating rate every decade. Worst offender and among the biggest influence in public health is Rockefeller succeeded in NGO realms now by Bill Gates.
" A for-profit private healthcare is run by us, the clients."
Give me a hit of what you're smoking and tell me what hospital and insurance you have that treats you as a valued client not a drive by robbery.
"Free markets are much more productive and and avoids shortages.
The current mess could not happen in a free market."
Hmmm, who else remembers two weeks to flatten the curve, our hospitals can't handle volumes and have limited ICU beds. The private hospital empire that gobbled community hospitals across America so we have 75,000 fewer beds than 1975.
Everything is driven by profit.. inventories are kept dangerously and no longer based on nurses and doctors input but by a bean counter in HQ who dgaf about patient outcomes just his shareholder report. stock like a cafeteria.. things like N95 mask shortages, no PPE etc. Our theoretical "free market" delivered epic fails for public health but made a new crop of billionaires.
"Private health insurances would obviously make profits by suggesting early treatment not those "vaccines""
Thought my math was bad but suggesting the immunity free billions pouring from the liability free cash cow of vaccines is dwarfed by the cheap generics is a knee slapper. What everyone at Pfizer is saying, thank goodness for cheap, early treatment so folks stay healthy. What a tragedy it would be if we were forced to vaccinate the world for obscene profit and extortion style contracts. Dickensian suffering indeed.
I guess we won't agree but since we must coexist it would be better if both of us knew the other one's point of view. I try to do my share, why don't you ?
As Aristoteles said “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
Of course I agree with you that Pfizer makes money by selling patented "medications" to our government, while no company can make money selling IVM.
I deplore that. That is no legitimate profits.
Your view is, I believe, that complete collectivization would avert this situation by eliminating profit and loss accounting.
Correct me if I get you wrong.
I object that this is due to a political context that:
1 - Make it impossible to make legitimate profits in healthcare by actually keeping people alive and healthy
2 - Permit that regulators impose their whims without any "skin in the game"
True, the medical and pharmaceutical industries profit from health issues.
But there are natural counterbalances in a free market: We the humans, who want to be alive and healthy bu not at any cost, and the insurance industry which profits from us not being sick and not dying.
In a free market the medical and pharmaceutical industries would be suppliers to us people and our insurance companies. Pfizer's could not make money by bankrupting its customers, the insurance companies. It is them which would promote early treatment. To make profits by avoiding disease and desth: Legitimate profits.
But government institutions have been interposed and severely restricts us and our insurances. This is the root cause of the current rot. In turn the pharmaceutical industry has turned to serve the interests of the regulators and not ours. Then the regulating bodies merged with the industry to form a "complex".
Your reply is confusing and distorts my position. Insurance companies are not on the side of consumers by any stretch of the imagination. They do not make money with healty people but by managing treatment in the most profitable way. Ever see the cost of an aspirin tablet on a hospital bill? Like $20 bucks per ten cent tablet hints at how this works.
"Pfizer's could not make money by bankrupting its customers, the insurance companies. It is them which would promote early treatment."
Not when all things COVID have bonus payments for insurers underwritten by government. Read the Pfizer contracts with any Nation to see vaccine profits are locked in even if vaccines are not delivered and there is no "skin in the game" no potential loss or liability. el gato has detailed how these incentives skew results
"They do not make money with healty people but by managing treatment in the most profitable way."
How do insurance companies make money by overpaying for aspirin ?
How do they not make money with healthy customers who cost then zero and pay them premiums ?
What you observe here is not the result of insurance per se but of regulations by the government: An insurance that overpays will go bankrupt because of competition, unless regulations oblige all insurances to overpay too.
The solution is deregulation, not collectivization - the exact opposite.
"Not when all things COVID have bonus payments for insurers underwritten by government."
I absolutely agree.
But I wonder how we come to diametrically opposite conclusions.
You seem to blame to insurers for doing what the government forces them to do with taxpayers money.
Do you say that they should resist the government and do instead what is right ? And call "greed" the fact that they do not ?
I'd take exception: The government is to blame for so distorting the economic information as to make it profitable to choose the course of action that it favors.
I maintain that pure insurance logic leads to what we agree to be the correct course of action (ie early treatment and minimal vaccination), not the one favored by the govenment (maximal vaccination and no early treatment). Otherwise why would the government need to use our extorted money to pay insurers ?
Needless to say, in a fully collectivized healthcare system the government would not even need that to prevail.
Your leap from considerations of regulatory capture to healthcare privatization will not be understood by people who do not have sufficient knowledge of the libertarian economic and social analysis.
Indeed we must separate healthcare and State.
The government is not the solution, it is the problem, as Ronald Reagan used to say.
But untrained minds might conclude the opposite.
So for anyone wondering how I come to this conclusion I would refer to the public choice theory, to Thomas Sowell (many interviews on Youtube) and my favorite: Frédéric Bastiat www.bastiat.org
I won't dive into austrian economics but let me just debunk the most relevant superstition here: In healthcare profit (ie the bottomline) is at odds with morale.
Well that is not the case in the insurance business, which turns hazards into losses and therefore their reduction into profits : Their bottomline is consistent with morale. Which is why they exist.
In a free healthcare jurisdiction I would trust my family healthcare to a good doctor and get an insurance against health hazards and death. My insurance company would suggest precautions to us in the form of primes reduction - like not smoking. In the absence of government regulators, pharmas could not capture them or lobby political parties (ie buy politicians). Their business model could only consist of convincing insurances to recommend their medications to help their bottomline by reducing disease and death.
The COVID pandemy would be dealt with minimal harm by a healthcare market economy. There can be no denying of early treatments efficacy when your bottomline and maybe your job is at stake. The "vaccines" use would be minimal if any for the same reason. Lockdowns cost vs benefits analysis would be made since the healthcare economy would not be disconnected from the rest.
Another superstition holds that government healthcare is the only for the poor not to die in the street. The truth is the opposite. But I don't want this to be too long. Just look around next time you drive downtown, and maybe read Tocqueville's study of pauperism in England (1835).
the current system is nasty & complex & without an easy ‘fix’... thanks to the government subsidies and under-payments for Medicare and Medicaid, the healthcare industrial complex looks to recover billing ‘deficiencies’ from private payers... under universal system this symbiotic financial relationship would literally collapse... and the result would be all methods of non-monetary rationing... so before contemplating Socialist style makeover, one should check out the results... we have many problematic examples worldwide.
Nice article and I appreciate the lists. Kinda feel the redefinitions of "immunity" and "vaccine" should be on there too. Part of the whole movable goalpost thing.
And yeah, I never got over the Supreme Court saying that healthcare could be mandated. I think one of the justices had a dissenting opinion about how is it possible we can tell every citizen they HAVE to buy a product, like a cellphone for example, but that opinion didn't carry the day, obviously. I was all, yeah, you can require it when it's actually something I want--I knew back then US 'healthcare' was more of a system-to-get-you-hooked-in than anything interested in healing. I wasn't too into politics at that moment of my life but I sure did notice how the prices for insurance--premiums and deductibles--magically skyrocketed once we DID have the ACA. And them labeling all the plans "gold" and "platinum" just showed me they think we average folk (me anyway, not trying to speak for anyone else here) ARE that dumb, to be distracted by the shiny names. LOL, I guess.
I may write something on the absurdity of mandates given every other vaccine we mandate has been studied for over 40 years. In that, I would include those changed definitions as a common counter-argument is "side effects for vaccines usually show up very early"... but these treatments are not really "vaccines".
you are spot on... my insurance inflation rate was DOUBLE DIGIT for years after the ‘Obama Unaffordable Care Act’... and it was a grandfathered private plan... last year grandfathered private plans were outlawed in California and they dumped us all into unaffordable care plans with extreme copays and deductibles... so continue to do my best to stay healthy and avoid healthcare system...💕🐱💕
Probably the best article I've read that lays out regulatory capture - short, to the point and enough to make anyone sick. I wanted to thank you for pointing us in the direction of Dr. John Campbell. I had not heard of him prior to watching the video you linked but after watching just 5 minutes - I was an immediate fan for life and subscribed to his channel. He is yet another addition to my growing list of heroic MD's and scientists who are keeping it real!
If you listen to RFK, Jr., he will tell you that regulatory capture occurred long before covid, and has been a part of the pharma landscape for years, if not decades. Yes, it is a problem, but as long as CDC employees, who do not work for the government, can personally profit based on patents they have their names on, and as long as a pharma is allowed to provide the lion's share of funding to such agencies, we will never get out from under this tyranny. We should have seen this coming a long time ago, but we were complacent; we allowed the CDC to mandate injecting our children with 72 doses of 16 different vaccines while they were still young. There is a reason that the U.S. went from having the healthiest childhood population before the late 80s and early 90s to no having the world's unhealthiest childhood population. Regulatory capture has been the bane of our existence now for decades, and our kids are paying the price.
Suppliers do not pursue high quality and low prices out of self interest but to keep customers. I believe that healthcare market has been distorted by regulations of the healthcare insurance industry.
If deregulated and disconnected from wages, it would restore the primacy of health over any other interest by making death and disability benefits the primary driver of losses, far ahead of medical costs.
I'm listening. Leading with "broken" is an understatement though. Whether public or private, corrupt is corrupt. Promising, new technology that has the *potential* to prevent or cure disease is not an end all be all to exploit people, our families, friends, complete strangers. Transparency has been lost. "A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody." - Thomas Paine
Well said. We are now 10 + years into the ACA and all the state run crap that goes with it . I have a bunch of friends who are doctors and say they would not go into medicine and advise their children to not go into medicine. Maybe the silver lining with Covid is it finally breaks the back of our healthcare system. Personally, I would like to buy a subscription into a hospital chain or concierge medical service(of which some already exist) and pay the docs directly.
Direct Primary Care, available by monthly membership model, includes labs and many meds at wholesale, small things like stitches for lacerations, broken bones, etc.
Then, a small catastrophic care ins policy to cover majors like cancer or heart surgery.
Excellent article. Here is another one that explains whey there is a drive to get everyone vaccinated, regardless whether it works or not.
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-corruption-of-my-liberal-tribe/
Thanks, I've actually been emailing the president of Brownstone. He should be publishing my piece on there this week.
Love the article but disagree privatizing is the answer; it's the path that led here. What we need is independent regulatory oversight and universal health care, not a for profit model run by lawyers and bureaucrats. A return to using Precautionary Principle wouldn't hurt either.
Today's US healthcare landscape--significantly occupied by HMOs and health "insurance" which is not, in form, insurance at all--is private mainly only in that it is not "publicly owned." What is sorely missing is the "private exchange" of medical services by an independent provider, for compensation, with an independent recipient of services.
The patient is no longer the customer, or even the real beneficiary, in these large bureaucratic systems. Many patients only engagement on costs of medical alternatives only after the course of treatment is complete, or already long underway, when the adjusted and insurance-portion paid bills start rolling in. Some providers even try to hide costs, particularly if they are fully covered, from the patients. Cost-benefit discussions prior to treatment are relatively rare, and course of treatment selection is often pre-ordained by what is "covered."
What we have, for many people, is Employer-paid and third-party managed "healthcare," in which patients and providers are effectively cost centers. The complete story of how we got here is no doubt a long one, but a major impetus was Federal Government intervention in the economy in WW II. Employers under strict wage controls could not adequately compete for high value employees, so high value benefits like comprehensive healthcare were added as a way around--a legal loophole in the rules. Employer-sponsored healthcare got a major boost. Some large and (presumably) unintended consequences persist.
"Privatization" need not involve huge corporations controlling the healthcare sector. But it would need to include more freedom for patients to control their own healthcare spending (and benefit from any savings) and more freedom for doctors to practice as they see fit. And more transparency for informed consent and rational-basis care decisions.
Government regulation that promotes freedom for patients and practitioners, as well as transparency and ethical business practices, generally provides benefit. Regulation that tries to predict the future, steer an industry, favor certain technologies or specialties, or the like is much less likely to be beneficial (or ethical).
all of the above is spot on... ‘UNIVERSAL’ healthcare, like ‘UBI’ and ‘PUBLIC EDUCATION’ is a recipe for BUREAUCRATIC BLOAT & MORE CORRUPTION... precisely because these are CENTRALIZED MODELS which concentrate money & power... decentralization way, way, way better... 💕💕💕💕💕💕
I agree, Canada case in point.
Well said! Interesting that Brownstone posted the article on their site and deleted that last paragraph about privatization as the solution. I'm glad they did because it's the weakest part in an otherwise excellent essay. I will share the Brownstone version but not this version.
Perhaps I didn't convey it clearly. I'm just trying to say, in a free market, which doctor would you choose? The doctor who offers you a $3,120 ineffective treatment, tells you to wait for the vaccine, and withholds information about safe off-patent treatments? Or the doctor who informs you of studies showing benefit in a several drugs that are proven to be safe: Ivermectin ($29), Fluvoxamine ($4), Vitamin D ($4), Intravenous Vitamin C ($75)?
We can have a debate about whether private or public healthcare is better for society at large. My point is simply that this dilemma does not arise within a truly free healthcare market.
I changed the last paragraph to this in hopes it conveys my point better.
"I'm just trying to say, in a free market, which doctor would you choose? "
This has nothing to do with free markets nor any hint of real world conditions. You can't compare choosing doctors to buying toilet paper with labels that disclose a uniform basis to contrast them.
As a Nation we have been conditioned to view doctors like soothsayers divining Rx potions or ritual process to heal us. As a profession our medical providers have been schooled to think in terms of pharmacological answers to every problem and to trust in the peer reviewed journals as gospel.
The term "free market" is among the most abused misnomers in the political lexicon. Mega corps spend millions for lobbying and get billions in pork filled legislation that protects obscene markups on patent protected drugs. In a free market consumers would have the $30 Epi-Pen generic and $800 dollar option both stocked at their pharmacy. Monopolies and cartels control supply and enjoy extortionist pricing which is what we have.
Expanding corporate power and profit potential will only exacerbate the problems. Public health should not be driven by profit it should be designed to be self sustaining. Under the flag of free markets small rural hospitals have been decimated as "health care" corps select hubs of operation and plan services like one more Starbucks based on demographics, traffic and overhead.
I appreciate the effort to find greater equity but your fundamental premises about economic function are unfounded and fly in the face of real world results.
Pamela, all of the problems you are describing are in line with problems I, and other commenters, have laid out. As you say, the industry is run by "bureaucrats", "lobbyists", and "monopolies". The lobbyists use the bureaucrats to secure their monopolies. How do they do this? By influencing FDA, NIH, & CDC officials (see examples in my bullet list at the start of the article). If you need more, note that "9 out of the last 10 FDA commissioners—representing nearly four decades of agency leadership—have gone on to work for pharmaceutical companies."
https://qz.com/1656529/yet-another-fda-commissioner-joins-the-pharmaceutical-industry/
The power originates from government. We are aware that corporations want to stamp out competition and gouge prices. The presence of a regulatory body with police power over an industry is what allows corporations to achieve those goals at our expense. In a free market, they have no power over what a doctor may/may not prescribe (FDA approval liability), another company's drug development process (regulatory hurdles), and price gouging allows competitors to undercut. So, actually, in a free market you could choose a doctor like you choose toilet paper (though obviously you would give it more consideration).
Another point of miscommunication in the various replies on this thread is that we have NOT been operating under a free market in healthcare in a VERY long time, so the system you are criticizing is not a free market. You are correct in saying the free market "is the path that led here", but that is the fault of government officials who allowed themselves to be corrupted. You cannot hope to extinguish the greed of each and every individual who wishes to game the system for profit. It is more feasible to elect a government with limited powers and nominate officials with integrity who will not be seduced into providing special favors.
This discussion is quite complex for a comment thread, but you have motivated me to do more research in this area. Perhaps I will write a piece on how our healthcare system has evolved through history into its current form.
I really appreciate all who are participating in these thoughtful discussions.
We agree until you get to this which was either mis-stated by me or misread by you. "You are correct in saying the free market "is the path that led here", but that is the fault of government officials who allowed themselves to be corrupted."
Any real free markets were disappearing since the days of the Robber Barons and evaporating at an accelerating rate every decade. Worst offender and among the biggest influence in public health is Rockefeller succeeded in NGO realms now by Bill Gates.
CDC began as Tuskegee syphilis project then under the umbrella of Eugenics Congress and good history piece to start with if that's the direction you decide to take. Great discussion, thanks! :~) https://web.archive.org/web/20210520084509/https://www.henrymakow.com/2021/05/mullins-how-the-rockefellers.html
https://www.fort-russ.com/2020/05/how-psychopath-john-rockefeller-wiped-out-natural-cures-to-create-big-pharma/
But a universal not for profit healthcare is by definition run by bureaucrats.
Bureaucrats can't have sufficient information to manage healthcare for all.
Shortages and waste are inevitable.
They could also have bad judgement: Ex Fauci.
How could more even government not make things even worse ?
A for-profit private healthcare is run by us, the clients.
Free markets are much more productive and and avoids shortages.
The current mess could not happen in a free market.
Private health insurances would obviously make profits by suggesting early treatment not those "vaccines".
" A for-profit private healthcare is run by us, the clients."
Give me a hit of what you're smoking and tell me what hospital and insurance you have that treats you as a valued client not a drive by robbery.
"Free markets are much more productive and and avoids shortages.
The current mess could not happen in a free market."
Hmmm, who else remembers two weeks to flatten the curve, our hospitals can't handle volumes and have limited ICU beds. The private hospital empire that gobbled community hospitals across America so we have 75,000 fewer beds than 1975.
Everything is driven by profit.. inventories are kept dangerously and no longer based on nurses and doctors input but by a bean counter in HQ who dgaf about patient outcomes just his shareholder report. stock like a cafeteria.. things like N95 mask shortages, no PPE etc. Our theoretical "free market" delivered epic fails for public health but made a new crop of billionaires.
"Private health insurances would obviously make profits by suggesting early treatment not those "vaccines""
Thought my math was bad but suggesting the immunity free billions pouring from the liability free cash cow of vaccines is dwarfed by the cheap generics is a knee slapper. What everyone at Pfizer is saying, thank goodness for cheap, early treatment so folks stay healthy. What a tragedy it would be if we were forced to vaccinate the world for obscene profit and extortion style contracts. Dickensian suffering indeed.
I guess we won't agree but since we must coexist it would be better if both of us knew the other one's point of view. I try to do my share, why don't you ?
As Aristoteles said “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
Of course I agree with you that Pfizer makes money by selling patented "medications" to our government, while no company can make money selling IVM.
I deplore that. That is no legitimate profits.
Your view is, I believe, that complete collectivization would avert this situation by eliminating profit and loss accounting.
Correct me if I get you wrong.
I object that this is due to a political context that:
1 - Make it impossible to make legitimate profits in healthcare by actually keeping people alive and healthy
2 - Permit that regulators impose their whims without any "skin in the game"
True, the medical and pharmaceutical industries profit from health issues.
But there are natural counterbalances in a free market: We the humans, who want to be alive and healthy bu not at any cost, and the insurance industry which profits from us not being sick and not dying.
In a free market the medical and pharmaceutical industries would be suppliers to us people and our insurance companies. Pfizer's could not make money by bankrupting its customers, the insurance companies. It is them which would promote early treatment. To make profits by avoiding disease and desth: Legitimate profits.
But government institutions have been interposed and severely restricts us and our insurances. This is the root cause of the current rot. In turn the pharmaceutical industry has turned to serve the interests of the regulators and not ours. Then the regulating bodies merged with the industry to form a "complex".
Your reply is confusing and distorts my position. Insurance companies are not on the side of consumers by any stretch of the imagination. They do not make money with healty people but by managing treatment in the most profitable way. Ever see the cost of an aspirin tablet on a hospital bill? Like $20 bucks per ten cent tablet hints at how this works.
"Pfizer's could not make money by bankrupting its customers, the insurance companies. It is them which would promote early treatment."
Not when all things COVID have bonus payments for insurers underwritten by government. Read the Pfizer contracts with any Nation to see vaccine profits are locked in even if vaccines are not delivered and there is no "skin in the game" no potential loss or liability. el gato has detailed how these incentives skew results
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/how-to-massively-skew-reporting-of?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxODYwOTkxMSwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDM2NTIwNzUsIl8iOiI3cHUxNSIsImlhdCI6MTYzNjMwMzMwNiwiZXhwIjoxNjM2MzA2OTA2LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMzIzOTE0Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.xUJMlvprv00KEiDghP9Ls-S6YviM22uC5jV52hkehx8
"They do not make money with healty people but by managing treatment in the most profitable way."
How do insurance companies make money by overpaying for aspirin ?
How do they not make money with healthy customers who cost then zero and pay them premiums ?
What you observe here is not the result of insurance per se but of regulations by the government: An insurance that overpays will go bankrupt because of competition, unless regulations oblige all insurances to overpay too.
The solution is deregulation, not collectivization - the exact opposite.
"Not when all things COVID have bonus payments for insurers underwritten by government."
I absolutely agree.
But I wonder how we come to diametrically opposite conclusions.
You seem to blame to insurers for doing what the government forces them to do with taxpayers money.
Do you say that they should resist the government and do instead what is right ? And call "greed" the fact that they do not ?
I'd take exception: The government is to blame for so distorting the economic information as to make it profitable to choose the course of action that it favors.
I maintain that pure insurance logic leads to what we agree to be the correct course of action (ie early treatment and minimal vaccination), not the one favored by the govenment (maximal vaccination and no early treatment). Otherwise why would the government need to use our extorted money to pay insurers ?
Needless to say, in a fully collectivized healthcare system the government would not even need that to prevail.
Your leap from considerations of regulatory capture to healthcare privatization will not be understood by people who do not have sufficient knowledge of the libertarian economic and social analysis.
Indeed we must separate healthcare and State.
The government is not the solution, it is the problem, as Ronald Reagan used to say.
But untrained minds might conclude the opposite.
So for anyone wondering how I come to this conclusion I would refer to the public choice theory, to Thomas Sowell (many interviews on Youtube) and my favorite: Frédéric Bastiat www.bastiat.org
I won't dive into austrian economics but let me just debunk the most relevant superstition here: In healthcare profit (ie the bottomline) is at odds with morale.
Well that is not the case in the insurance business, which turns hazards into losses and therefore their reduction into profits : Their bottomline is consistent with morale. Which is why they exist.
In a free healthcare jurisdiction I would trust my family healthcare to a good doctor and get an insurance against health hazards and death. My insurance company would suggest precautions to us in the form of primes reduction - like not smoking. In the absence of government regulators, pharmas could not capture them or lobby political parties (ie buy politicians). Their business model could only consist of convincing insurances to recommend their medications to help their bottomline by reducing disease and death.
The COVID pandemy would be dealt with minimal harm by a healthcare market economy. There can be no denying of early treatments efficacy when your bottomline and maybe your job is at stake. The "vaccines" use would be minimal if any for the same reason. Lockdowns cost vs benefits analysis would be made since the healthcare economy would not be disconnected from the rest.
Another superstition holds that government healthcare is the only for the poor not to die in the street. The truth is the opposite. But I don't want this to be too long. Just look around next time you drive downtown, and maybe read Tocqueville's study of pauperism in England (1835).
Very well said. I knew I was making quite the leap. I forgot how inflammatory the topic is. :)
the current system is nasty & complex & without an easy ‘fix’... thanks to the government subsidies and under-payments for Medicare and Medicaid, the healthcare industrial complex looks to recover billing ‘deficiencies’ from private payers... under universal system this symbiotic financial relationship would literally collapse... and the result would be all methods of non-monetary rationing... so before contemplating Socialist style makeover, one should check out the results... we have many problematic examples worldwide.
Nice article and I appreciate the lists. Kinda feel the redefinitions of "immunity" and "vaccine" should be on there too. Part of the whole movable goalpost thing.
And yeah, I never got over the Supreme Court saying that healthcare could be mandated. I think one of the justices had a dissenting opinion about how is it possible we can tell every citizen they HAVE to buy a product, like a cellphone for example, but that opinion didn't carry the day, obviously. I was all, yeah, you can require it when it's actually something I want--I knew back then US 'healthcare' was more of a system-to-get-you-hooked-in than anything interested in healing. I wasn't too into politics at that moment of my life but I sure did notice how the prices for insurance--premiums and deductibles--magically skyrocketed once we DID have the ACA. And them labeling all the plans "gold" and "platinum" just showed me they think we average folk (me anyway, not trying to speak for anyone else here) ARE that dumb, to be distracted by the shiny names. LOL, I guess.
I may write something on the absurdity of mandates given every other vaccine we mandate has been studied for over 40 years. In that, I would include those changed definitions as a common counter-argument is "side effects for vaccines usually show up very early"... but these treatments are not really "vaccines".
you are spot on... my insurance inflation rate was DOUBLE DIGIT for years after the ‘Obama Unaffordable Care Act’... and it was a grandfathered private plan... last year grandfathered private plans were outlawed in California and they dumped us all into unaffordable care plans with extreme copays and deductibles... so continue to do my best to stay healthy and avoid healthcare system...💕🐱💕
Great post and links. Thanks! It is indeed sickening to witness.
Excellent post.
Thanks mate!
Thanks for writing it!
Probably the best article I've read that lays out regulatory capture - short, to the point and enough to make anyone sick. I wanted to thank you for pointing us in the direction of Dr. John Campbell. I had not heard of him prior to watching the video you linked but after watching just 5 minutes - I was an immediate fan for life and subscribed to his channel. He is yet another addition to my growing list of heroic MD's and scientists who are keeping it real!
Many thanks! Just seeing this comment now... Dr. Campbel is a great resource!
If you listen to RFK, Jr., he will tell you that regulatory capture occurred long before covid, and has been a part of the pharma landscape for years, if not decades. Yes, it is a problem, but as long as CDC employees, who do not work for the government, can personally profit based on patents they have their names on, and as long as a pharma is allowed to provide the lion's share of funding to such agencies, we will never get out from under this tyranny. We should have seen this coming a long time ago, but we were complacent; we allowed the CDC to mandate injecting our children with 72 doses of 16 different vaccines while they were still young. There is a reason that the U.S. went from having the healthiest childhood population before the late 80s and early 90s to no having the world's unhealthiest childhood population. Regulatory capture has been the bane of our existence now for decades, and our kids are paying the price.
Suppliers do not pursue high quality and low prices out of self interest but to keep customers. I believe that healthcare market has been distorted by regulations of the healthcare insurance industry.
If deregulated and disconnected from wages, it would restore the primacy of health over any other interest by making death and disability benefits the primary driver of losses, far ahead of medical costs.
couldn’t agree with you more!💕🐱💕
I'm listening. Leading with "broken" is an understatement though. Whether public or private, corrupt is corrupt. Promising, new technology that has the *potential* to prevent or cure disease is not an end all be all to exploit people, our families, friends, complete strangers. Transparency has been lost. "A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody." - Thomas Paine