Re: What is the root cause of the rising cost of health care ?


<royls@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:46dca9d6.37952940@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Mon, 3 Sep 2007 20:35:24 -0500, "Peter Olcott"
<NoSpam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<royls@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Sat, 1 Sep 2007 11:51:03 -0500, "Peter Olcott"
<NoSpam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The next best alternative to Nexium is Prilosec. The
patent
on Prilosec has expired to it is now in the public
domain.
I
don't buy Prilosec because (with the subsidy of health
insurance) Nexium is cheaper.

You continue to claim that, but you haven't explained
how
it is
possible. Does your insurance pay only for patented
drugs, not for
unpatented drugs?

My insurance will pay for prescription drugs, they will
not
pay for non prescription drugs. Prilosec is now a non
prescription drug, and costs about $50.00 for a months
supply. Nexium only cost me, $40.00 co-pay for a months
supply.

Then you agree that your demand for Nexium has nothing to
do with
demand unconstrained by price, and everything to do with
an insurance
policy designed by a fool.

The root cause of the rising cost of heath care is that
the
subsidy of health insurance causes very wasteful
allocation
of scarce resources

You still haven't explained why your rational health
insurance company
will pay for Nexium but not for the far cheaper
Prilosec.
Until you
provide some support for that claim, it is safe for
readers to assume
that you are either mistaken or lying.

Partly because they are a bureaucracy, and thus very
resistant to change, and partly because they are in bed
with
the health care industry, and partly because it doesn't
really cost them anything, they simply raise their rates.

And maybe they are just an inefficient provider that has
not yet
succumbed to market forces.

-- Roy L

They form the insulation between the otherwise rational
health care consumer and the market forces. If no one had
any health insurance, and instead put the same amount of
money away into health savings accounts that could later be
converted into retirement savings accounts, then and only
then would the market forces be in full force driving prices
downward.


.

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