A Capitalist Healthcare System

I think the answer is "its complicated". The US has a largely capitlist health system. American spend the most in the world on healthcare by a country mile but have neither a high life expectancy nor good health outcomes.

By contrasy Cuba has an excellent healthcare system run by a communist government.

But in reality, perhaps neiher is perfect. The problem with the capitalism model is that the goal is profit when the problem is how do you improve health. The idea of improving health when the goal is either to reduce costs or charge for interventions that are not required seem at odds with what a population actually needs.

I propose a government regulated medical economy so as to avoid this outcome. When the focus is to out do your competitors the logical conclusion is to beat them at the medical options they are supplying.

Sorry but we shouldn't be striving to have similar things to the US in any shape of form imo (lower food standards, too much patriotism, capitalist health care system etc). I am strongly against a non-universal/non-free healthcare system. Everyone should be allowed to have affordable healthcare and not have to worry about any major medical bills.

Did you read my entire argument? I strongly advocate against the US's healthcare system as it's a monopoly. I suggested a that we have a government regulated healthcare market that ensures a large amount of smaller companies in order to assure prices come down (thus allowing universal healthcare) and medical advancements are made significantly faster.

Got to love the hilarity of the third option, a healthcare system that regularly excludes vast swathes of the population forcing them to die from such preventable causes as not being permitted diabetes medication, is no healthcare system in ones opinion.
A better way to describe it would be a racket.

Maybe so, but if that's what people think I want the polls to reflect that else it wouldn't be representative now would it.

I wouldnt call a tsr poll particularly representative to start with but meh.

It's representative of TSR users, is it not??

In this thread I'm going to explain my theory of why a truly capitalist healthcare system would be the most beneficial form of healthcare system.

I welcome all feedback of course, that's why I'm here. And please let me know if you find any glaring problems with my theory.

A Capitalist Healthcare System would be better than any 'NHS' or 'Big Farmer', not the monopoly health care system they have in the US that's run by a select few companies. I mean a truly competitive healthcare system made up of smaller companies driving medical innovation whilst also fighting for the market and lowering their prices.

Of course, the cutting edge medical solutions would (as they are today) still be reserved for the very wealthiest. However, this would matter much less due to the new medical advancements being made due to the new economy. Just look at what it has done for the technologies industry; things like touch-screen smartphones are now common place where they once were the front pediment of technological opulence.

This kind of capitalist healthcare economy would unfortunately have to be much more regulated by the government in order to avoid monopolies which would restrict healthcare, e.g. the US. But, the government monetary resources saved by this new economy and relieved from the burden of carrying the NHS would be more than enough to supply the budget for this regulation.

So, that's my theory at least. What do you guys think?

Collusion is endemic in any free market system, it’s better for companies to work together and work as a “price fixing cabal” because that is way more efficient and rakes in more profit

Did you read my entire argument? I strongly advocate against the US's healthcare system as it's a monopoly. I suggested a that we have a government regulated healthcare market that ensures a large amount of smaller companies in order to assure prices come down (thus allowing universal healthcare) and medical advancements are made significantly faster.

Wrong argument and the thread isn't making much sense as your propositions are not realistic and they are very unlikely to happen in the UK.

You are deluted if you think that prices will come down if we have a larger amount of smaller companies. No guarantee about it at all..

You put the words regulation & unfortunately together.. Why does make you think that state regulation should be avoided?

Given the experience we all have from life and what happens in other countries such as the US, I think full Nationalization of the NHS is what the State should be looking forward to and to preserve at least what we have.

By the way, the words Capitalist & Healthcare together will make even traditional Tory Voters very skeptical...

So far we have had 10 years of consecutive and terrible Tory Governments.
Hundreds of new...Foof banks all across the country
Thousands and thousands of new homeless people and millions more in zero hours contracts, part time employment, and unemployment, all living with state benefits as a result.

The last we want is a Capitalist Health System of any form.

First of all; Hello again, its nice to see you participating in this debate, albeit rather disrespectfully.

I'm aware of the bad reputation that capitalism has when it comes to healthcare, I explain why I think it would be beneficial in my original post. From my experience most people when it comes to healthcare believe that socialised healthcare is the best way, I am merely playing devil's advocate in suggesting the contrary.

'Unfortunately' and 'government regulation' are not always positioned together in my sentences, in some cases, like the case I am suggesting, it can be extremely necessary. However, the general consequences of economic and business regulation tend to be great tax expense and stagnation of business, all with (depending on the situation) no guarantee of a beneficial element to balance the scales. In a medical economy, as proven by the US's healthcare situation, it would be a necessity.

Finally, with reference to your opening point, I most certainly am not 'deluted', or deluded as I assume you meant to write. I am not proposing that prices 'might' come down, I am informing you that it would be the only logical out come in a fair, competitive, healthcare economy. And this isn't just a hypothesis, it has been tested in many other fields of business, technology for example; not too long ago our mobile phones did not have a touch-screen, now it's common place. How do you think this came about? As the tech businesses had more competition they needed to improve their technology in order to offer something that the competing companies did not. The same thing would happen in a medical economy, as one company comes out with more effective medical solutions, other companies have to invest in developing a new medical option that will output better results, or perhaps come up with a way of cheaper manufacturing.

The fact that you merely brought up misunderstandings of my initial proposal in your criticism is a testament to how the majority of people, like you said, see the words capitalist and healthcare in the same sentence and don't take the time to understand how it would work.

I hope this answered all your questions, if you have others I would be happy to answer them.

I haven't misunderstood your comments at all. There is a again a distinct difference between theory and application. The two worlds sometimes are mutually exclusive and this is the case with what you are planning to hsooen and what will actually happen.

The UK has one of the best healthcare systems in the world despite the pressures and growing numbers of people who use the system as well as a growing population.

On the other hand we have the US System which is a disaster for humankind.

Most decent European healthcare systems are like our own, in Germany, France, Sweden, Belgium, Holland, Italy, etc. Some of the poorest countries in Europe however have adopted a more privitazed system, although still under the control of the state, but without the most success and given the financial crisis of our times.

Still, there is a huge difference between theory and application.

My understanding is that when you try privatize health, education, services of any kind, etc, millions of people are left without health, education, etc. Already happened elsewhere. You just have to learn using the examples from elsewhere.

Pardon me for the typos, this is what happens when you write from a mobile phone, fast..