Jay Beattie wrote:
On Dec 7, 4:27 pm, Tim McNamara wrote:
In article ,
T m Sherm n _ " wrote:

On 12/6/2010 11:04 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
In ,
Peter wrote:
[...]
Medicine, in the US, via a number of mechanisms, is pretty much
a cartel.
Bull****. But you have to stop mixing things up to be able to
understand that.
The financing of medical care in the US is a cartel.
You'd have to prove collusion between insurance companies to prevent
competition or inflate prices to demonstrate that health care finance is
a cartel. It may very well be, and if so it is one of many (along with
the oil industry, the cell phone industry, the music industry, the movie
industry, the...). Drug companies, OTOH, operate as monopolies rather
than as cartels.

Insurance policies and premiums are approved by state regulators.
Premiums are set based on actuarial data, and annual increases must be
approved. Insurance companies are treated like regulated utilities and
not cartels in the sense that they are competitors engaged in illegal
price fixing or other monopoly-like activity. The problem is that
there are too few insurers competing for business, so there is no real
choice for consumers.

Patent rights may give drug companies "monopolies" on certain drugs in
the same way that Shimano has a monopoly on Di2, but the drug
companies are not "monopolies." Since we are talking about multiple
competitors, it would have to be a trust or a cartel in any event.

The problem is that market forces are very, very weak in the health
care industry. The capitalist model does not work well. I am pushing
for a complete overhaul: socialized voo-doo. -- Jay Beattie.


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