Did You Know This Shocking Way That We're Behind Much Of The World?

[Selatius]

18. There's too much profit-seeking in the hospital side of things.

The reason why prices are so inflated are two-fold.

First, the few big insurance companies would rather simply pass on the buck to their customers than actually spend time and energy trying to curb medical cost inflation. They're too busy trying to gouge customers and throw them under the bus and operating as a cartel in everything but name. If health insurance premiums are expensive, it's likely because there is no competition and thus no incentive for health insurance companies to price premiums competitively.

Second, it's hard to stoke competition between hospitals to keep costs down. A gunshot victim wants to know where the nearest hospital is; he's not going to spend time to compare prices between hospitals. Also, compared to the past, most hospitals nowadays are run as for-profit ventures. The days where most hospitals are owned by municipalities or operated by churches are over. There's profit to be had and shareholders to be satisfied and executives to be paid, and any good capitalist will run his business to generate a profit first and foremost, everything and everyone else being secondary.