I can imagine hospitals being so large (and coupled with mandatory-service emergency rooms), that there would be a lot of hoops to extricate themselves. But smaller private providers surely make the choice more voluntarily. Tangentially, I'd venture that if billing and other deadweight overhead were actually reformed, current Medicare reimbursement rates would actually be quite profitable.
But regardless, either of the archetypical sane systems requires correct reimbursement rates. If not corrected in a functioning market, Medicare doesn't get services. If not corrected in a single-payer government system, then the hospitals go out of business. Healthcare cannot be reformed without solving this problem!
> It's the same reason that every PC laptop you purchase has a thousand different model names and numbers, even though they're all 99% identical
I too see this as another instance of the same general phenomenon (although obviously not as harmful). Computation is being wielded to generate unbounded complexity, to destroy individuals' ability to understand situations for making rational self-interested choices. If you want an even worse one, try buying toilet paper!
I'm not one to reactively say "there needs to be a law", but it seems if there is any economic function of government, it's to facilitate the understandability of transactions. Saner states already have "unit pricing" laws, and they're badly in need of updating to restore their usefulness.
I don't hold out hope given the dysfunctional state of government, so my only real hope is that we can build bottom-up technology to fight back by cutting through the artificial complexity, restoring individuals' economic ability. But that's clearly a long slog away.
But regardless, either of the archetypical sane systems requires correct reimbursement rates. If not corrected in a functioning market, Medicare doesn't get services. If not corrected in a single-payer government system, then the hospitals go out of business. Healthcare cannot be reformed without solving this problem!
> It's the same reason that every PC laptop you purchase has a thousand different model names and numbers, even though they're all 99% identical
I too see this as another instance of the same general phenomenon (although obviously not as harmful). Computation is being wielded to generate unbounded complexity, to destroy individuals' ability to understand situations for making rational self-interested choices. If you want an even worse one, try buying toilet paper!
I'm not one to reactively say "there needs to be a law", but it seems if there is any economic function of government, it's to facilitate the understandability of transactions. Saner states already have "unit pricing" laws, and they're badly in need of updating to restore their usefulness.
I don't hold out hope given the dysfunctional state of government, so my only real hope is that we can build bottom-up technology to fight back by cutting through the artificial complexity, restoring individuals' economic ability. But that's clearly a long slog away.