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PeakTrader:

I wonder how many Americans died too soon, because costly, i.e. excessive, health care regulations made health care less affordable?

The ACA is creating winners and losers. However, I suspect, in general, prices will go up and/or quality will go down.

Excessive regulations have costs – in time, effort, and money, which are not limitless.

Buying health care insurance is not the same as buying health care.

We should allow the market to work, which tends to lower prices and raise both quantity and quality. So, everyone is a winner. Otherwise, there will be rationing, in one form or another,

Deregulating, while keeping appropriate regulations, will free-up enough resources to subsidize catastrophic health care or preexisting conditions, for examples, and allow a strengthening of the safety net.

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Slugbaits, the government has already done a great disservice to the American people by making health care too expensive.

Haven’t you learned anything from the public school system?

If we had a market economy in health care, it would work like any industry that’s not overregulated and/or overtaxed. There would be more output produced with fewer inputs, enormous capital creation through massive efficiencies, a faster expansion in health care, and more government tax revenue. Living standards of the masses would improve much faster.

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PeakTrader:

More government micromanagement in health care will cause more undesirable effects.

I think, people are in for a rude awakening. Of course, politicians will shift blame.

For example, according to “Comparing the U.S. and Canadian Health Care Systems – NBER:”

“Finally, the authors examine whether Canada has a more equitable distribution of health outcomes, as might be expected in a single-payer system with universal coverage. To do so, they estimate the correlation across individuals in their personal income and personal health status and compare this for the two countries. Surprisingly, they find that the health-income gradient is actually more prominent in Canada than in the U.S.”

http://www.nber.org/bah/fall07/w13429.html

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Joseph, you’re making implications, e.g. all minorities are poor, and twisting the study, e.g. declaring the uninsured wait forever. For example, the study states: “While the incidence of unmet needs is slightly lower in Canada (11 percent, vs. 14 percent in the U.S.), it is interesting to note that waiting time is cited as the reason by over half of Canadians who report unmet needs. By contrast, cost is cited as the reason by over half of Americans.”

Less than 3% of Canada’s population is black and less than 2% is Hispanic. The data show blacks have a lower life expectancy and most immigrants to the U.S. come from dirt poor countries (a small proportion of them are highly skilled or educated, which adds to income inequality).

A rigorous study, comparing health care systems, compares apples to apples, , e.g. the NBER study.

When you say the U.S. spends more on health care per capita than other countries, you seem to ignore the fact that it includes more research and development, more and better capital equipment, more and better clinics and hospitals, higher quality treatments, highly specialized doctors, etc..

The U.S. is #1 in the world in both labor (e.g. doctors, nurses, specialists, etc.) and in capital (e.g. hospitals, equipment, technology, etc.). I’m sure, the U.S. is also #1 in the world in research and development, and in new therapies and drugs, which not only benefit the U.S., they benefit the rest of the world.

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Also, when controlling for factors outside health care systems, the U.S. has the best health outcomes in the world, including the longest life expectancy.

Beyond Those Health Care Numbers

“The difference in health outcomes has more to do with broader social forces.

Americans are more likely than Canadians to die by accident or by homicide. For men in their 20s, mortality rates are more than 50 percent higher in the United States than in Canada…accidents and homicides account for most of that gap.

Americans are also more likely to be obese, leading to heart disease and other medical problems. Among Americans, 31 percent of men and 33 percent of women have a body mass index of at least 30, a definition of obesity, versus 17 percent of men and 19 percent of women in Canada. Japan, which has the longest life expectancy among major nations, has obesity rates of about 3 percent.

The health system in the United States gives low birth-weight babies slightly better survival chances than does Canada’s, but the more pronounced difference is the frequency of these cases. In the United States, 7.5 percent of babies are born weighing less than 2,500 grams (about 5.5 pounds), compared with 5.7 percent in Canada. In both nations, these infants have more than 10 times the mortality rate of larger babies.

Research by the Harvard economists David Cutler, Ed Glaeser and Jesse Shapiro concludes that America’s growing obesity problem is largely attributable to our economy’s ability to supply high-calorie foods cheaply. Lower prices increase food consumption, sometimes beyond the point of optimal health.

Science has consistently found new ways to extend and improve our lives. Wonderful as they are, they do not come cheap.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/business/04view.html?_r=0

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Bruce Hall:

There is value in providing assistance to people who absolutely cannot afford or find health care. I’m not convinced that the dynamics of the ACA/expanded Medicaid is the way to do that… and for many people, the jury is still out on that. A major element of unaffordable health care is the cost the doctors incur simply to do business. The new electronic records requirements can easily reach 6 figures. Medical school and insurance to cover all sorts of perceived malpractice easily exceeds that. It is driving doctors who have private practice and work long hours into hospital systems where they are salaried and work shifts… or retire. That doesn’t mean costs are declining, only that they are shifting.

For example: http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2014/05/pay-french-doctor.html

There are many who wonder why many Hispanics are not rushing to ACA.

Here is one insight: http://www.kpbs.org/news/2010/may/19/why-americans-choose-health-care-mexico/

I suspect that, like many market-driven actions, the medical community will react to the increased regulation, massive imposed costs, legal morass, and constant scapegoating with some innovative solutions.

http://watchingamerica.com/News/232437/despite-security-issues-americans-can-save-65-percent-through-medical-tourism-to-mexico/

Maybe we will begin to see hospital ships 15 miles off the coast offering treatment and recovery facilities. As long as the government continues to make life difficult for the medical industry, it will take a lot more than Medicaid to solve the problems.

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PeakTrader:

I suspect, if the U.S. had an actual economic recovery, rather than this on-going deep depression, oil would’ve risen to $200 a barrel. Moreover, the U.S. oil production boom would’ve been even bigger.

It seems likely, we can expect continued high prices, more conservation, and greater use of alternative energy, including ethanol and natural gas.

While the marginal cost of production will likely increase, as we shift from cheap to expensive oil, advances in technology, or increases in productivity, will, at least, somewhat offset the higher cost.

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Ricardo, why would sellers build-up inventories, and hire workers, when there are no customers? The U.S. economy is underproducing by about $1 trillion a year. There are over 20 million unemployed and underemployed Americans, which adds to income inequality Chart:

http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/charts/indicators/GDP-per-capita-overview.html?Real-GDP-per-capita-since-1960-log.gif

UCLA Anderson Forecast: U.S. economy falls short of true recovery
June 05, 2013

“U.S. real GDP is now 15.4 percent below the normal 3 percent trend. To get back to that 3 percent trend, we would need 4 percent growth for 15 years, 5 percent growth for eight years, or 6 percent growth for five years, not the disappointing twos and threes we have been racking up recently, which are moving us farther from trend, not closer to it. It’s not a recovery. It’s not even normal growth. It’s bad.”

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