Is this really surprising ?
One of the many reasons that our health care model is so bad is that its not a free-market transaction between the buyer and the seller. This is not unique to health insurance. Look at the pricing for a roof replacement or removing a fallen tree when using insurance versus paying cash.
I hear all this about how the free market would bring down the cost of health care. But health insurers negotiate some pretty significant discounts. When I had an accident on my bike, the ER visit was $8,000. Insurance paid $500. The must be making a profit off or else the hospital wouldn’t have agreed to it. If we take insurance away, what would the free market deem to be the “correct price” for my $8,000?
Short answer,no.
This is so unbelievably ignorant I don’t even know where to begin.
That would be like saying the Nazi guards at Auschwitz were generous humanitarians because they allowed the prisoners to make bread.
The insurance industry caused all these ridiculous price inflations/distortions and lack of price transparency…and it’s all in order to make you buy insurance.
Step 1 is to remove head from ass, KC.
You didn’t answer KC’s question.
They paid $500. Sure…the MSRP was $8,000. So that’s the number we look at. But we overlook what they accepted. And it must be fairly lucrative because doctors aren’t quitting. The free market might allow the docs to get more, but that won’t lower costs to the patient.
I missed the “what”.
It is a shiny object to keep us from focusing on the actual costs.
That still didn’t answer my question. What do you feel the fee market would deem that MSRP to be?
If we got rid of Medicare, Medicaid, the ACA and stopped forcing hospitals to treat people for free the free market would work just like it does with everything else. An ER visit would cost the same for everyone regardless of how you’re paying and could be posted before you agree to care.
I don’t have enough data to make that determination.
Most likely below what the insurance paid.
Some people are unconscious when they go to the ER or not in a state to make sound financial decisions.
Then they could choose not to pay and the hospital can return them to the condition they came in with. 
The problem is too many people don’t have coverage or care providers have to choose to accept lower payments from government programs and insurance. That increases costs to others just like stores pass the cost of shrinkage on to paying customers.
You’re still not fucking listening (shocker). The insurance industry is why the “MSRP” is $8K to begin with.
Stop trying to repress the symptoms and look at the root cause.
Okay…let me get this straight…Currently an ER bill is negotiated down to $500 from $8,000, but the free market would likely come in below what insurance paid. So lets say it’s $475. And that would be great and everybody would be happy. But if we got “socialized medicine” and they paid $450, doctors will quit because they can’t afford to practice
Why do you even engage @KC in discussions related to finance or economics? He just trolls people into oblivion. I really don’t believe he can actually be that stupid…at least that’s my hope.
He is practicing a very pathetic form of cognitive dissonance, in which he performs the digital equivalent of closing his eyes, plugging his ears, and saying “la la la, I can’t hear you.”
That is how obnoxious people participate in discussions without ever addressing the severe flaws in their logic. It’s a form of resistance.
I engage him for the same reason he engages us. It’s more interesting than simply agreeing with everyone all the time.
Another helpful post. The turning point from a discussion of insurance costs to insulting me.
Yes
Dr’s probably wouldn’t get that much
Compare what an insurance company pays vs. medicare/medicaid