If a company doing private licensing were giving them out to everyone who would give them money, no matter their standards or quality, why would companies pay for them? Or better, why would consumers give a crap about them?

Re-read my analogy of credit rating agencies. Clearly investors valued them highly (the AAA ratings) even though in fact they were paid for by the issuers.

Re-read the free rider problem. Then realize consumers WON'T BE THE ONE TO PAY. So, someone has to, and that'd be the doctors. Or their employers (also doctors).

Ok, answer some of my questions instead of giving a bad analogy to some other hugely regulated rating agency which has it's own set of issues (especially with AAA rating being necessary for some reserve requirements). Not too mention there is a big information difference between giving a risk of default rating, which is a prediction, and a quality of care rating, which is a history.

I understand that doctors are paying. But WHY would a doctor buy something that means nothing and does little to recognize the quality of his care? How does that benefit him in a market with competing licenses?

Welcome to the forum sir!

I understand all the problems you make in regard to ratings agencies, now please explain to me how the govt employees are magically unbribable, or even less bribable than private companies and any of the problems that you have stated are fixed.

Oh and consumer report and cnet.com, just to name a few who imo give very excellent and unbiased reviews. Also why do you think a ratings agency that gets a history of pumping out useless credentials will still be respected by the public. That's why you can't open up some ****ty school and just tell everyone your degrees are as good as harvard's and magically expect employers to believe you. Yet good schools do rise up and then their degrees are respected. The reverse, good schools fall and then their degrees are then less respected.

legislators have never been bribed. the FDA has never been bribed. let's just stick with the FDA/govt combo guys. screw giving medicine to sick people.

glad you finally came around

The crux of the matter is that the process of finding out when a for-profit medical rating agency has jumped the shark will be a painful one - resulting in patient deaths and mis-diagnoses. Most people would rather take the risk of bribery with the not-for-profit govt system, inefficient as it is - vs. waiting for something like what happened with the bond ratings agencies as part of the natural business cycle. America isn't that corrupt at the local official level yet. We tend save our corruption for the highest echelons, and do it legally.

What's to stop doctor's from "jumping the shark" now? Wouldn't that be a very painful problem resulting in patient deaths? You don't need a rating agency for that.

I saw this one episode of American Greed on CNBC where a dermatologist in FL was purposefully misdiagnosing moles as cancer and operating on them purely for profit. Government failure?

+1, no system is ever going to be perfect but if I had to choose between a free market or a government ran health care system I would most definitely choose the latter.

IMO one of the reasons why America spends a high %GDP on healthcare is the fact it is ran for profit.

The government can't ensure that there are no bad apples in their healthcare system as it is HUGE. In Britain one of the worst cases of this was Dr Harold Shipman where he literally killed his patients on purpose.

It's not like there would be anything in a free market that would stop a future him doing the same.

And ^this^ is about the extent you contribute to any discussion.

Maybe if you'd "bring your base of knowledge" you've repeatedly blathered on about to the discussion instead of always bitching about people not knowing what they are talking about and adding absolutely nothing further, we can all be enlightened beings of knowledge like yourself, no?

And this quote really encapsulates your entire posting style. Just post one or two sentences appealing to ridicule and think you've somehow addressed the ****ing issue.

Excellent, first we make a simple bare assertion, and then follow it up with a nicely crafted strawman.

If I'm free to select any doctor and I will be paying her from my own pocket, do you think on the margin I am more or less likely to critically evaluate her?

I find there are 2 problems here

1) You're always going to pay for healthcare if you have money be it direct or through taxes. So you should critically evaluate to the best of your ability regardless.

2) How can you tell whether the doctor is any good or not without having substantial knowledge of the field (besides really obvious cases). Doctors are experts because they know stuff the layman doesn't. Therefore layman are not going to be effective judges of their expertise.

In before suzzer admits he's too lazy to do any homework on the person who will be providing his healthcare, because hey, it's just human life we're talking about here, who has time for that?

flying donkey,

i know very little about cars, but i can easily find good or bad mechanics.
i can't cook, but i can judge chefs.
i'm not a dentist...

Nobody's arguing an all-benevolent non-profit rating agency would spring forth and usher in health care utopia. On the flip side for any rating agency to compete or become successful they would have to devise a model that benefits "the interests of the population". All of your arguments for why privatizing is bad assumes one monopolizing company which is a bold and convenient-for-you argument to make.

wat

Why have some weird, bribably entity that is public do it? Only thing here is in the public arena you're 100% guaranteed things are weird and bribable. 0<x<100% for private, and people appear to have unshakable predispositions toward where on that gradient the x lies, so no point trying to debate it.

yay

Right because both advocate subordination to the state and oppression/extermination of select groups. Oh wait you were just talking about the vehemence with which they fight?

I understand your EDIT argument, and I think it's a valid concern. I thought obsidian's posts were good in addressing it. As an aside though, could you further explain how this AAA example relates to the free rider problem? I read the wiki article and can't connect the dots.

I think the exact opposite, profit can serve as a motivation to decrease cost and increase performance.

Poor lifestyle choices in America and immense government regulation are two of the biggest reason why spend so much.

Complete deregulation would of course drop cost, but there are others problems associated with it.

The U.S. is also a good deal bigger than other countries, having individual states have their own healthcare decisions would be much better than having one huge cluster**** of a government run health care system.

To anyone who actually thinks a 100% free market haven of healthcare would ever work, just change the subject from healthcare to law enforcement. Or better yet military. Need I say more?

maybe

I think a 100% free market in both of those things would work.

Yeah, start with explaining how they are at all similar.

So you think this country could be effectively secured and ran on purely private militia and corporatised military interests? Like, instead of raytheon and lockheed building fighter jets for the military, they just build them for the highest bidder and let whatever entity use them at their own discretion? You think this would ever even get off the ground? Especially compared to an organized nation who's sponsored military attacks us? Like Russia or China?

The bolded is what's happening right now.

This is why health care /= military.