TOM TOMORROW: Doctor Hand! ("How Can They Stay in Business if They Have To Insure Sick People?")

[Hissyspit]

DAILY KOS LINK: http://www.dailykos.com/blog/comics

[Doctor_J]

1. One thing I don't get...I hope

Since the president knows the Repukes are going to yell and stamp their feet about anything he proposes...why does he propose Republican solutions to every problem? Why not try a more Dem approach once in awhile? He's enacting a right-of-Reagan agenda and still getting pounded. Is he a masochist?

K/R

[daleanime]

3. You had me till the last line.....

now I can't shake this image of Michelle with a whip.....







back in awhile......

[Victor_c3]

4. I think that is what the ACA is

it was the Republican solution to healthcare. Or at least it was Mitt(ens) Romney's solution...

The ACA really is a step in the right direction. It obviously isn't the final fix, but it is a step to getting us there and a lot of good will come out of it. I believe that after 1-3 years this law will really start to improve the lives of Americans and it will painfully obvious that the Republicans had nothing to do with it.

[Cryptoad]

5. Seems that the Obama Haters Love it! ,,,,nt

[DanM]

2. Cool comic strip, bro!

[Nine]

6. Please clarify. (nt)

[leftstreet]

7. ...

[GreenStormCloud]

8. That's why we need Medicare for everybody.

Last edited Mon Nov 4, 2013, 01:42 PM - Edit history (1)

The invisible hand really does work well for most things, except for medical care. The free market operates on four assumptions. They are:

1. The average buyer is reasonably well informed about the product he is buying and about the sellers he is buying from.

2. The sellers are in competition with each other.

3. The buyer is spending his own money.

4. The average buyer is not under duress.

None of those assumptions exist with medical care, so the free market falls apart. This is a situation where nationalized health care can work well, as proven by every other country in the world.

Insurance, which works very well for other risks, isn't working well at all for health risks.

[Flatulo]

11. Very good analysis. More people need to understand this.

[GreenStormCloud]

12. Thank you. N/T

[LittleGirl]

13. best comment

on this thread and/OR ANY I have read about the free market and healthcare insurance...brilliant. This should be an OP.

[GreenStormCloud]

14. OK. I will work it up into one & post later today.

Last edited Mon Nov 4, 2013, 06:30 PM - Edit history (1)

On edit: Can't do it today. Boss called and needs me to come in on my day off. That's OK, I get overtime. He never calls me in on a day off unless something unexpected has happened. I work for a small company for some really nice people that are very considerate of the employees so I don't mind coming in. I will work it up into a thread in a few days.

[Doctor_J]

16. 5. The item is a luxury, or at least "non-essential"

this may be what you meant in 4. But the fact is that every American needs to have access to HC, just in case. So mandating that a few big companies sell it, and everyone must pay for it, is a recipe for price-fixing cartels and scams.

[GreenStormCloud]

17. I disagree about #5.

You misunderstand the strengths and weaknesses of the free market. It works for the vast majority, but not for everybody. There will be some who are left behind, sometimes through their own fault, sometime through no fault of their own. It needs to be regulated or it ends in a dictatorship. And a safety net needs to be provided for those who fall behind.

Many essentials are well provided for by the free market. Food, clothing, shelter are essentials. My clothes are bought at private stores, and I can be in style or out of style as I choose and my budget allows. I buy food at private markets, and my house is not government provided.

The private market fails because non of the four legs are met.

You go to the doctor because you hurt and you don't know why. The doctor orders some tests. (He is making the buying decisions, spending your money.) You can't call around to get comparative prices because you don't know the questions to ask because you don't know what is wrong with you. You ARE under duress because you are hurting.

There are some things the free market doesn't do well. Roads in rural areas & city streets would be some examples. Insurance doesn't work well because it is a free market solution to a problem that needs a government solution.

[Rilgin]

18. addition to good post

Last edited Mon Nov 4, 2013, 06:47 PM - Edit history (1)

Your last statement about risks is what I would expand on. Insurance works well to spread risks it does not work well to just pay for costs.

Health Insurance as a risk spreader requires the concept of pre-existing conditions or it just becomes a method of having healthy people subsidize the known costs of the people with existing medical conditions. Insurance companies are actually quite good at actuarial predictions of risks. Unknown risks like falling down stairs, strokes, accidents, hearth attacks, cancer with high costs are the real meaning of health insurance. You can add stuff like strep, flu, pneumonia that require doctors visits but are not really costly.

Getting rid of pre-existing conditions makes a system based on insurance a distorted system where you are getting the currently healthy to subsidize the health costs of others with known conditions and costs and then try to make it right with subsidies. Of course the ACA does do other insurance reforms but the essence of the system is using insurance and eliminating pre-existing conditions.

This is why government health care or government single payer is the only system that makes sense because it is theoretically consistent with the decision of a society to make health care a right and just have people with pre-existing conditions have health care directly paid for by government rather than a kludged distorted insurance system.

[GreenStormCloud]

19. Exactly.

Insurance works great as life insurance, car insurance, fire insurance, etc, but is lousy at health insurance.

Prior to Medicare health insurance policies terminated at age 65. All old folks had no insurance except their own money. Medicare solved that. Expanding Medicare, and taxation to cover it, would solve the problem.

There would be huge cost savings too. Health insurance companies spend a lot of money to make sure they aren't being cheated by pre-existing conditions, and commissions to sales agents, and other overhead. Typically they only pay out about 60% of the premiums they take in, except for genuine groups through employers, then they pay out much higher percentage. People would not be paying out the higher insurance premiums, but would pay a lower tax amount.

Doctors would not have to have staff doing as much paperwork, thereby saving money.

Hospitals would be paid for everybody, instead of cost shifting for non-payments. Cost-shifting is the industry term for raising prices to cover losses.

[JoeyT]

20. The problem is that the market doesn't actually work.

At least not on its own. 1, 2, and 4 all require government enforcement. Without regulatory agencies, you can't be reasonably well informed, because they can just lie and who's going to stop them? Without regulation, monopolies arise (Though it can be argued that that's allowed with regulation, since we don't seem to care about monopolies anymore.). 4 can be violated any number of ways. Shady contracts, company towns, and monopolies on essential goods or services could all be examples of duress that require regulation to prevent.

There's really no such thing as a free market. By the time you create enough legislation and regulation to prevent it becoming a predatory system, it doesn't really resemble the idea of a free market anymore.

[GreenStormCloud]

21. Certainly regulation is needed.

With out reasonable regulation the free market ceases to be free and becomes a dictatorship. But I wanted to keep my post simple on the main points and not get into side-issues.

[Starry Messenger]

22. +1

[HughBeaumont]

9. Sorry There Ain't No More Blunt Method of Slegdehammering a RW Skull.

I'd sure love to hear a conservative's rebuttal to this. You know, while I'm doubled over laughing.

[progressoid]

10. Zip it! Nobody likes a pedant!

[caseymoz]

15. I love to hate "the hand."

I love every Tom Tomorrow strip "the invisible hand" (only technically) appears in.

[Danascot]

23. Brilliant

Tom Tomorrow is astounding.

[WillyT]

24. K & R !!!