The issue with the US healthcare system is that you are conned by cartells, that have disabled market forces. So the market in your case doesnt work anymore.
This is largely independent of people on the lower income scale not receiving any 'non emergency' healthcare.
Your drug prices are just through the roof, because you have no other options, and no unified 'large force' that could implement baseline pricing, by being a large enough vendor. Its entirely messed up.
And the argument usually goes: Yeah, but it holds incentives for new drug development. Issue - most of them are not directed towards curing illnesses, and in previous years there have hardly been any large breakthroughs, but more and more patent wars instead (as more people worldwide become affluent enough to buy themselves a larger lifespan, ...).
Roughly. So for the average citizen the US medical system is broken (preexisting conditions issue, cost).
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But also, market isnt the solution to all issues. Again, if you do a free trade agreement with india, as a result of their wages being lower, you are now developing india (and your affluent class). Those are market forces. Also markets tend to create bubble and bust cycles (thats misallocation), that then have to be mitigated by public investments. Trade nowadays is largely done by algorithms, we dont understand anymore - and which have had to be reigned in structurally, because of flash crashes, so you wrote those out of the systems, by writing in guideposts. Thats not free market. Those arent even human actors anymore. Then there are fields, where personal gains arent driving a better development of whatever exists in the field.
And there is the fact that the magic 'invisible hand of the market' doesnt exist. Adam Smith only ever wrote about it in the following context (in 'Wealth of nations'). People wouldnt be propelled to invest in foreign countries, they'd have a homeland bias, that would make them invest in England more, as if propelled by an invisible hand. Not even Trump believes that anymore.
See also criticisms (Stiglitz) and f.e. the 'externalities' argument: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand
This is largely independent of people on the lower income scale not receiving any 'non emergency' healthcare.
Your drug prices are just through the roof, because you have no other options, and no unified 'large force' that could implement baseline pricing, by being a large enough vendor. Its entirely messed up.
And the argument usually goes: Yeah, but it holds incentives for new drug development. Issue - most of them are not directed towards curing illnesses, and in previous years there have hardly been any large breakthroughs, but more and more patent wars instead (as more people worldwide become affluent enough to buy themselves a larger lifespan, ...).
Roughly. So for the average citizen the US medical system is broken (preexisting conditions issue, cost).
--
But also, market isnt the solution to all issues. Again, if you do a free trade agreement with india, as a result of their wages being lower, you are now developing india (and your affluent class). Those are market forces. Also markets tend to create bubble and bust cycles (thats misallocation), that then have to be mitigated by public investments. Trade nowadays is largely done by algorithms, we dont understand anymore - and which have had to be reigned in structurally, because of flash crashes, so you wrote those out of the systems, by writing in guideposts. Thats not free market. Those arent even human actors anymore. Then there are fields, where personal gains arent driving a better development of whatever exists in the field.
And there is the fact that the magic 'invisible hand of the market' doesnt exist. Adam Smith only ever wrote about it in the following context (in 'Wealth of nations'). People wouldnt be propelled to invest in foreign countries, they'd have a homeland bias, that would make them invest in England more, as if propelled by an invisible hand. Not even Trump believes that anymore.
See also criticisms (Stiglitz) and f.e. the 'externalities' argument: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand
Last edited by notimp,