Dec 19, 2022·edited Dec 19, 2022Liked by A Midwestern Doctor
" For example, both Walmart and Amazon pioneered a strategy of undercutting local businesses on prices to grow their market share. "
I know this article isn't about economics, but one thing I rarely ever see people mention is that cheap debt (printed money from the Fed) is necessary to create these corporate behemoths. It is this cheap debt that allows these mega corporations and franchised businesses to expand so rapidly and grab their market share. Without this cheap debt, it would be extremely difficult to acquire and build out the capital (buildings, truck, equipment, etc.) needed to run these businesses.
Hospitals require lots of capital (buildings, equipment, etc.). Cheap debt has allowed a small handful of corporations to take over the healthcare market. Before that, my understanding was many hospitals were run by charitable organizations, churches, etc - smaller, more private actors.
At the same time, this cheap debt makes capital equipment relatively less expensive than people. So, businesses install capital equipment at a more rapid pace than they would without the cheap debt. However, the employees cannot adjust their skills fast enough under the regime of cheap debt. So, many of them lose their jobs, even though the addition of capital equipment actually creates more, but different, jobs.
I would argue that it's not so much money, but fake money or debt that is treated as money, that causes these problems. When there is a love of money and you can simply clip coins (the ancient way - there are Bible passages on equal weights and measures about this very thing), print money (the way of most of the 20th century) or add digits in a computer (today's way), you don't need to put in any work to actually acquire more money. That naturally attracts the wrong type of people to having the most money. And, that's the problem.
Despite all the censoring, another thing to consider is the 'ignorance is bliss' mentality. If we choose not to know about or understand something, then we have no moral culpability to respond. Often, that's why it's easier for us to believe a lie than to explore an uncomfortable truth.
"Unfortunately, the human mind tends to dislike experiencing the powerlessness that comes with acknowledging uncertainty." Or as I like to put it, in fewer words, people can't seem to say "I don't know". People -- try it sometime. It's liberating!
"...the more educated one is, the more aggressively one holds onto those axioms." I don't know. I am aware that the system seems designed to produce that result, but I see the problem as more rooted in the presence or absence of what we used to call a "moral upbringing". Mine was rough, as it was for many of my generation. Such an upbringing might be considered abusive today, and perhaps it was to some degree, but so is life, and the way I was treated was effective in my formation, even in spite of itself. We used to talk about that quite a bit, and some still do. Can we say that about child rearing practices today?
When the manner of upbringing is difficult -- in the way life itself is difficult -- but not overtly abusive (my paternal grandfather was a child beater -- that's what my father grew up with), it can produce what I would call "a love for the truth". That love is able to cut through a great deal of the nonsense that is thrown at children and adults. It serves throughout life. Another attribute that can develop is a leaning toward sacrifice and away from acquisition. It just makes more sense.
I also had a religious upbringing -- Christian fundamentalism mixed at times with Christian modernism -- that was a complex concoction of truth and lies. My parents were not great role models, but it makes sense in terms of what they went through in WW II. My faith formation began conventionally, but then morphed into something quite unconventional as my mother became involved in a cult when I was 12, and I followed along. That cult was fairly notorious in its day, and yet it proved to be quite a good training ground. I learned a good deal of the Bible in my teens, in spite of the cult's corrupt teachings. Perhaps more importantly, they taught the need to eat good food, not industrially-farmed crud, and to be very, very cautious about and suspicious of -- medical doctors!
I also learned to be very cautious about and suspicious of religious movements, and I spent nearly half my adult life exploring other paths, and no, they did not all lead to the same place. Ultimately I came kind of full-circle, back to something personal and biblically based, rather than tradition-based, full of uncertainty about many things, and revolving around the principle that no amount of human effort can elevate us out of our human condition. It takes something more, something that is only available for the asking.
The stories are many and varied, but I think I see a common thread among those seeking and loving the truth: learning the value of saying "I don't know", and of what can be learned from that.
What can be learned is that while we want to look "out there" for the causes of all our problems, the true causes lie within, and it is within where they must be faced, with help from whence we came. Ponder that question for a while -- where _did_ we come from? A good starting point would be "I don't know."
Money is NOT the root of all evil. However, "For the love of money is the root of all of evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." 1Tim 6:10
unfortunately the mislabeled ‘C19 vaccines’ are not pharmaceutical products subject to the laws & regulations meant to ensure safety & efficacy, but DOD contracted ‘prototypes/ countermeasures’ the contents of each vial US Government property up to the point of injection. Katherine Watt has done amazing investigative work uncovering the decades of legal structure, PREParation enabling this crime:
Dmitry Kats appears to having remarkable success at curing COVID, vaccine-injuries, Ivermectin-injuries and much else using flush niacin and folic acid (Vitamins B3 & B9).
But it's hard to build a community solution when medics aren't interested in anything they can't sell.
Still, these days any solution that is ignored/dismissed/suppressed whilst being constantly trolled gains credibility.
Happy holidays Doc and substack readers. Hoping that the World Health Organization is not granted world-wide authority over healthcare. Politics and medicine are a match made in hell. The only way to live free of that mismatch is to be your own doctor by the grace of God. I have books and health summits on every major disease I can think of, from honest doctors and healthcare practitioners. All of them seem to understand that the alleged modern-day pharma cures are worse than the diseases themselves.
AMD - Always enjoy reading your perspective, but have a question for you. Currently have 2 friends with clotting issues that will not abate. One nearly died (actually, he did die but was recessitated by EMTs). Both are on Elliquis (sp?). I am calling this a vaccine injury. Are you seeing anyone having luck treating this - or should they just expect to be on anti-clotting meds the rest of their lives?
Seems like a double hit for Pfizer. Create the problem, then provide a life long solution.
I suspect vaccines cause allergies, because the adjuvants make one "immune" to whatever allergens are present at the time. While the immunity a vaccine imparts may wane, repeated exposure to those allergens acts as a booster to the allergy. One might have to vacation in the South Seas for a decade for the allergy to wear off. Have you written about allergy desensitization shots? How do they work, rather than just acting as boosters?
Um, why IV vitamin C? Some people may be intolerant of high-dose (1 gram every half hour) vitamin C, but some of us do tolerate it. It worked on me for Omicron and some other variant. Mainstream medicine may love needles, but not everyone does.
1) I've always loved the premise of the book "Small is Beautiful" and see the absurdity of certain business practices - for example, shipping items from one place to another when it would be better all around (if one includes the environmental impact of transportation and all it involves) to make them in the location where they are used. And why does a company constantly need to grow? If it is providing a service that is good and needed and supplies good work for a small number of people then what more is needed.? I guess this is where greed comes in.
2) I was probably the happiest as a student - with just enough money to buy a few things here and there but few things to hold you down or hold you back. I also enjoy the feeling on a backpacking trip when all I need can be carried on my back. One gets caught up in saving for retirement and acquiring security (food and housing and clothing for our families) throughout life and that bogs us down and we forgot the joy in simple things in life, like taking a walk in nature, and contemplating meaning in our lives. I am of the mind that more is not necessarily better.
This is really interesting. I’ve noticed many of the things that you are articulating here but I have learned new vocabularies and you have really explained what I’ve observed and helped it make sense really well.
I loved Desmet’s book and have recommended it often but I always mention that I disagree with the chapter on conspiracies. However, his book makes excellent points about how not all bad things that emerged out of the pandemic came from well defined conspiracy. Some things that happen in society really are just natural phenomena that result from like minded people sort of shifting towards common goals and making decisions that benefit themselves at the expense of others. You can clearly see this happening in medicine over the last several decades. Medicine is a business. It’s a big business. (Something like 1 out of 5 dollars is spent on medicine in the US? That’s enormous!) People who want to earn a lot of money are going to be attracted to medicine because it’s an opportunity for high income, prestige, and other highly visible benefits. I’m sure healing people is also a powerful draw but to ignore the fact that doctors make a lot of money and that is going to be an important aspect of those choosing it as a career would be disingenuous. And it wasn’t always that way. I’ve looked at the evolving issue from many different angles because the medical system is surrounded in problems concerning sustainability and also concerning the high rates of negative consequences for those who participate in the system. It basically is causing death, destruction and or financial ruin for many, many people. And I think in many instances, doctors are having a difficult time with not being able to spend adequate time with patients and being constrained by the system etc.
There’s no denying the fact that healthy people do not contribute to the bottom line for hospitals (maybe with the exception of vaccines), and so they don’t ultimately contribute financially to all the doctors, nurses, administrators and other people who get paid from the system. There is no financial incentive built into it to gear the entire system around helping people to be healthy. And its an inherently difficult thing to try and build into a system anyway. The document you have highlighted here is brutally honest.
One of the reasons I have so much interest in this is because I realized the hard way that the medical system did not have answers for me when I was dealing with chronic illness. I finally started looking for answers outside of the medical system and realized that most of the root of my problems were found in the way I was feeding and caring for myself. Since that time I’ve been able to make changes and heal my chronic illnesses (without the medical system) and I have wanted to share that with other people. My desire to share that with other people has led me to speak out about health and try to help people understand how important diet and lifestyle are. I’ve actually gone as far as to teach courses and classes and it’s been an interesting journey. I’ve learned a few hard truths. 1. People are often only interested in learning about this after they have been suffering from chronic disease so prevention is not very successful. 2. Even very interested people have limited success sticking with lifestyle changes because they are hard 3. I have put in a lot of work to share these messages, which I’m fairly certain are true and pertinent to the health crisis we are experiencing today, and yet I have not made any money (I’m not trying to make money. I’ve never charged for my classes or cooking lessons but I can tell it would not probably not be successful if I did). 4. People often don’t trust advice from someone who doesn’t have a degree, which can be good or bad, depending on the truth of message.
All of this has helped me understand why the medical model is so successful. It’s promise is a “cure” for disease with little to nothing expected of the patients by way of difficult actions. Of course being ill is difficult but it’s a different kind of difficult than making lifestyle modifications. So in some ways, I see the problems in the medical system as a sort of partnership with the problems that people have with making good lifestyle choices. (in other words, we as citizens, have a responsibility in the level of corruption in the system because we turn over responsibility of our health to the medical system voluntarily)
As I have thought about how we got here and what the answers could possibly be, I have a theory as to how this evolved to our current situation and what would be required to fix it.
It seems as though capitalism is the root of the problem but I actually think that capitalism is probably not truly the root of the problem. I think that switching to an almost exclusively insurance based model is where things went wrong. If people actually had to pay directly for the healthcare that they need and want (which is more of a capitalism type system), they would make very different decisions both with their medical decisions and in their lifestyle decisions. When insurance became a thing, people were disconnected from the price of what it cost to treat disease and they no longer felt any participation in deciding what costs they were willing to pay both for their medical care and for their health. As insurance has played a larger and larger role over time in standing between patients and their medical care, there is this continuing growing divide between what people are willing to do for their health, what they can afford, and what kind of care is expected. There is literally no relationship between the price of healthcare and what an average person has money to pay for and so hospitals and doctors can keep ratcheting up the technology and the cost without any real way for people to protest it.
I’m not sure if I’m explaining this very well but I’ll put it this way. If people went into a doctors office and the price was listed for the procedure that they want or need, and then people had to reach into their pocket and pay for it, several things would happen. 1. They would shop around for more competitive prices and competition would drive down prices. You actually see the price of procedures fall if it’s something that insurance doesn’t cover (cosmetic surgery for example). 2. They would probably not choose to have ALL recommended tests, surgeries and procedures and they would be inclined to scrutinize them more carefully, meaning they would actually care more about what the doctor was telling them to do and they would be more critical about deciding if it was helping or harming. 3. The doctors who helped people become the healthiest with the least interventions would be the most sought after 4. People would have a very instantly recognizable financial incentive to take care of their health. (This is probably the most important aspect of getting rid of insurance for expected medical expenses!)
Insurance really is supposed to be about people pooling their money for unexpected events. But insurance is now used for almost ALL medical care and most of it is very expected such as childbirth, common surgeries, check-ups, screenings, common chronic diseases etc. Because insurance is used for commonly expected healthcare, it essentially means that everyone is paying a third party (the insurance company) to then pay a doctor for what they know they will likely need and so instead of paying one entity, they pay two. This will never cost less! And because insurance is paid before the illness or medical expense, the doctor/hospital can charge whatever they want and the insurance company can’t really say no (not in a meaningful way anyway) and so you see prices skyrocketing almost monthly.
Btw, I’m referring to insurance but I’m including government insurance programs as well, but they are actually even worse at exacerbating the problems due to rampant fraud, waste and abuse.
I’m sure my lay person break down of the problem is probably simplistic and short sighted in some areas but I think it’s an aspect that isn’t considered very often when people talk about the problems with capitalism and medicine. I really don’t think capitalism is the core problem. We essentially have more of a socialized/capitalism hybrid without any of the cost saving measures that socialized medicine has.
My husband and I have experienced many different levels of coverage and it’s really taught me a lot about the financial situation. Currently we use a health sharing program and it’s fascinating dealing with trying to pay a medical office when you tell them that you are paying with cash. I could give many examples of what we have experienced and how odd it is. In a capitalist model without the “insurance” insertion, a medical office would know what the prices are. Sometimes it takes my husband a few hours to work out the billing problems just because we pay in cash and that’s after we’ve already paid and we get more additional bills from the billing company that the doctors office or hospitals send off to a few months later. I don’t know what the percentage of people pay out of pocket is but I’m guessing it’s less than 1%. This is why I think looking at it and thinking the problems lies with capitalism is flawed reasoning.
Again thank you for this article. I definitely learned a lot. It’s a fascinating read!
" For example, both Walmart and Amazon pioneered a strategy of undercutting local businesses on prices to grow their market share. "
I know this article isn't about economics, but one thing I rarely ever see people mention is that cheap debt (printed money from the Fed) is necessary to create these corporate behemoths. It is this cheap debt that allows these mega corporations and franchised businesses to expand so rapidly and grab their market share. Without this cheap debt, it would be extremely difficult to acquire and build out the capital (buildings, truck, equipment, etc.) needed to run these businesses.
Hospitals require lots of capital (buildings, equipment, etc.). Cheap debt has allowed a small handful of corporations to take over the healthcare market. Before that, my understanding was many hospitals were run by charitable organizations, churches, etc - smaller, more private actors.
At the same time, this cheap debt makes capital equipment relatively less expensive than people. So, businesses install capital equipment at a more rapid pace than they would without the cheap debt. However, the employees cannot adjust their skills fast enough under the regime of cheap debt. So, many of them lose their jobs, even though the addition of capital equipment actually creates more, but different, jobs.
I would argue that it's not so much money, but fake money or debt that is treated as money, that causes these problems. When there is a love of money and you can simply clip coins (the ancient way - there are Bible passages on equal weights and measures about this very thing), print money (the way of most of the 20th century) or add digits in a computer (today's way), you don't need to put in any work to actually acquire more money. That naturally attracts the wrong type of people to having the most money. And, that's the problem.
Despite all the censoring, another thing to consider is the 'ignorance is bliss' mentality. If we choose not to know about or understand something, then we have no moral culpability to respond. Often, that's why it's easier for us to believe a lie than to explore an uncomfortable truth.
"Unfortunately, the human mind tends to dislike experiencing the powerlessness that comes with acknowledging uncertainty." Or as I like to put it, in fewer words, people can't seem to say "I don't know". People -- try it sometime. It's liberating!
"...the more educated one is, the more aggressively one holds onto those axioms." I don't know. I am aware that the system seems designed to produce that result, but I see the problem as more rooted in the presence or absence of what we used to call a "moral upbringing". Mine was rough, as it was for many of my generation. Such an upbringing might be considered abusive today, and perhaps it was to some degree, but so is life, and the way I was treated was effective in my formation, even in spite of itself. We used to talk about that quite a bit, and some still do. Can we say that about child rearing practices today?
When the manner of upbringing is difficult -- in the way life itself is difficult -- but not overtly abusive (my paternal grandfather was a child beater -- that's what my father grew up with), it can produce what I would call "a love for the truth". That love is able to cut through a great deal of the nonsense that is thrown at children and adults. It serves throughout life. Another attribute that can develop is a leaning toward sacrifice and away from acquisition. It just makes more sense.
I also had a religious upbringing -- Christian fundamentalism mixed at times with Christian modernism -- that was a complex concoction of truth and lies. My parents were not great role models, but it makes sense in terms of what they went through in WW II. My faith formation began conventionally, but then morphed into something quite unconventional as my mother became involved in a cult when I was 12, and I followed along. That cult was fairly notorious in its day, and yet it proved to be quite a good training ground. I learned a good deal of the Bible in my teens, in spite of the cult's corrupt teachings. Perhaps more importantly, they taught the need to eat good food, not industrially-farmed crud, and to be very, very cautious about and suspicious of -- medical doctors!
I also learned to be very cautious about and suspicious of religious movements, and I spent nearly half my adult life exploring other paths, and no, they did not all lead to the same place. Ultimately I came kind of full-circle, back to something personal and biblically based, rather than tradition-based, full of uncertainty about many things, and revolving around the principle that no amount of human effort can elevate us out of our human condition. It takes something more, something that is only available for the asking.
The stories are many and varied, but I think I see a common thread among those seeking and loving the truth: learning the value of saying "I don't know", and of what can be learned from that.
What can be learned is that while we want to look "out there" for the causes of all our problems, the true causes lie within, and it is within where they must be faced, with help from whence we came. Ponder that question for a while -- where _did_ we come from? A good starting point would be "I don't know."
Money is NOT the root of all evil. However, "For the love of money is the root of all of evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." 1Tim 6:10
unfortunately the mislabeled ‘C19 vaccines’ are not pharmaceutical products subject to the laws & regulations meant to ensure safety & efficacy, but DOD contracted ‘prototypes/ countermeasures’ the contents of each vial US Government property up to the point of injection. Katherine Watt has done amazing investigative work uncovering the decades of legal structure, PREParation enabling this crime:
https://bailiwicknews.substack.com/p/biomedical-security-state-and-state?publication_id=37889&isFreemail=false&utm_medium=email
Dmitry Kats appears to having remarkable success at curing COVID, vaccine-injuries, Ivermectin-injuries and much else using flush niacin and folic acid (Vitamins B3 & B9).
But it's hard to build a community solution when medics aren't interested in anything they can't sell.
Still, these days any solution that is ignored/dismissed/suppressed whilst being constantly trolled gains credibility.
He's at www.hom3ostasis.com but his Telegram group is more up-to-date.
"Unfortunately, the human mind tends to dislike experiencing the powerlessness that comes with acknowledging uncertainty."
So true!
Typo last paragraph prior to covid 19 injextions section
Words reads mole, should be more
Excellent article covering many topics!
I have summarized my relevant findings today:
https://rayhorvaththesource.substack.com/p/a-summary-of-general-poisoning
Happy holidays Doc and substack readers. Hoping that the World Health Organization is not granted world-wide authority over healthcare. Politics and medicine are a match made in hell. The only way to live free of that mismatch is to be your own doctor by the grace of God. I have books and health summits on every major disease I can think of, from honest doctors and healthcare practitioners. All of them seem to understand that the alleged modern-day pharma cures are worse than the diseases themselves.
AMD - Always enjoy reading your perspective, but have a question for you. Currently have 2 friends with clotting issues that will not abate. One nearly died (actually, he did die but was recessitated by EMTs). Both are on Elliquis (sp?). I am calling this a vaccine injury. Are you seeing anyone having luck treating this - or should they just expect to be on anti-clotting meds the rest of their lives?
Seems like a double hit for Pfizer. Create the problem, then provide a life long solution.
I suspect vaccines cause allergies, because the adjuvants make one "immune" to whatever allergens are present at the time. While the immunity a vaccine imparts may wane, repeated exposure to those allergens acts as a booster to the allergy. One might have to vacation in the South Seas for a decade for the allergy to wear off. Have you written about allergy desensitization shots? How do they work, rather than just acting as boosters?
Um, why IV vitamin C? Some people may be intolerant of high-dose (1 gram every half hour) vitamin C, but some of us do tolerate it. It worked on me for Omicron and some other variant. Mainstream medicine may love needles, but not everyone does.
Comments on various topics you cover:
1) I've always loved the premise of the book "Small is Beautiful" and see the absurdity of certain business practices - for example, shipping items from one place to another when it would be better all around (if one includes the environmental impact of transportation and all it involves) to make them in the location where they are used. And why does a company constantly need to grow? If it is providing a service that is good and needed and supplies good work for a small number of people then what more is needed.? I guess this is where greed comes in.
2) I was probably the happiest as a student - with just enough money to buy a few things here and there but few things to hold you down or hold you back. I also enjoy the feeling on a backpacking trip when all I need can be carried on my back. One gets caught up in saving for retirement and acquiring security (food and housing and clothing for our families) throughout life and that bogs us down and we forgot the joy in simple things in life, like taking a walk in nature, and contemplating meaning in our lives. I am of the mind that more is not necessarily better.
Dr. Hodkinson from Canada has rather strong words for those who practice medicine in the way you describe (the whole interview is also interesting)
https://youtu.be/3iFWIEQgobQ?t=3610
This is really interesting. I’ve noticed many of the things that you are articulating here but I have learned new vocabularies and you have really explained what I’ve observed and helped it make sense really well.
I loved Desmet’s book and have recommended it often but I always mention that I disagree with the chapter on conspiracies. However, his book makes excellent points about how not all bad things that emerged out of the pandemic came from well defined conspiracy. Some things that happen in society really are just natural phenomena that result from like minded people sort of shifting towards common goals and making decisions that benefit themselves at the expense of others. You can clearly see this happening in medicine over the last several decades. Medicine is a business. It’s a big business. (Something like 1 out of 5 dollars is spent on medicine in the US? That’s enormous!) People who want to earn a lot of money are going to be attracted to medicine because it’s an opportunity for high income, prestige, and other highly visible benefits. I’m sure healing people is also a powerful draw but to ignore the fact that doctors make a lot of money and that is going to be an important aspect of those choosing it as a career would be disingenuous. And it wasn’t always that way. I’ve looked at the evolving issue from many different angles because the medical system is surrounded in problems concerning sustainability and also concerning the high rates of negative consequences for those who participate in the system. It basically is causing death, destruction and or financial ruin for many, many people. And I think in many instances, doctors are having a difficult time with not being able to spend adequate time with patients and being constrained by the system etc.
There’s no denying the fact that healthy people do not contribute to the bottom line for hospitals (maybe with the exception of vaccines), and so they don’t ultimately contribute financially to all the doctors, nurses, administrators and other people who get paid from the system. There is no financial incentive built into it to gear the entire system around helping people to be healthy. And its an inherently difficult thing to try and build into a system anyway. The document you have highlighted here is brutally honest.
One of the reasons I have so much interest in this is because I realized the hard way that the medical system did not have answers for me when I was dealing with chronic illness. I finally started looking for answers outside of the medical system and realized that most of the root of my problems were found in the way I was feeding and caring for myself. Since that time I’ve been able to make changes and heal my chronic illnesses (without the medical system) and I have wanted to share that with other people. My desire to share that with other people has led me to speak out about health and try to help people understand how important diet and lifestyle are. I’ve actually gone as far as to teach courses and classes and it’s been an interesting journey. I’ve learned a few hard truths. 1. People are often only interested in learning about this after they have been suffering from chronic disease so prevention is not very successful. 2. Even very interested people have limited success sticking with lifestyle changes because they are hard 3. I have put in a lot of work to share these messages, which I’m fairly certain are true and pertinent to the health crisis we are experiencing today, and yet I have not made any money (I’m not trying to make money. I’ve never charged for my classes or cooking lessons but I can tell it would not probably not be successful if I did). 4. People often don’t trust advice from someone who doesn’t have a degree, which can be good or bad, depending on the truth of message.
All of this has helped me understand why the medical model is so successful. It’s promise is a “cure” for disease with little to nothing expected of the patients by way of difficult actions. Of course being ill is difficult but it’s a different kind of difficult than making lifestyle modifications. So in some ways, I see the problems in the medical system as a sort of partnership with the problems that people have with making good lifestyle choices. (in other words, we as citizens, have a responsibility in the level of corruption in the system because we turn over responsibility of our health to the medical system voluntarily)
As I have thought about how we got here and what the answers could possibly be, I have a theory as to how this evolved to our current situation and what would be required to fix it.
It seems as though capitalism is the root of the problem but I actually think that capitalism is probably not truly the root of the problem. I think that switching to an almost exclusively insurance based model is where things went wrong. If people actually had to pay directly for the healthcare that they need and want (which is more of a capitalism type system), they would make very different decisions both with their medical decisions and in their lifestyle decisions. When insurance became a thing, people were disconnected from the price of what it cost to treat disease and they no longer felt any participation in deciding what costs they were willing to pay both for their medical care and for their health. As insurance has played a larger and larger role over time in standing between patients and their medical care, there is this continuing growing divide between what people are willing to do for their health, what they can afford, and what kind of care is expected. There is literally no relationship between the price of healthcare and what an average person has money to pay for and so hospitals and doctors can keep ratcheting up the technology and the cost without any real way for people to protest it.
I’m not sure if I’m explaining this very well but I’ll put it this way. If people went into a doctors office and the price was listed for the procedure that they want or need, and then people had to reach into their pocket and pay for it, several things would happen. 1. They would shop around for more competitive prices and competition would drive down prices. You actually see the price of procedures fall if it’s something that insurance doesn’t cover (cosmetic surgery for example). 2. They would probably not choose to have ALL recommended tests, surgeries and procedures and they would be inclined to scrutinize them more carefully, meaning they would actually care more about what the doctor was telling them to do and they would be more critical about deciding if it was helping or harming. 3. The doctors who helped people become the healthiest with the least interventions would be the most sought after 4. People would have a very instantly recognizable financial incentive to take care of their health. (This is probably the most important aspect of getting rid of insurance for expected medical expenses!)
Insurance really is supposed to be about people pooling their money for unexpected events. But insurance is now used for almost ALL medical care and most of it is very expected such as childbirth, common surgeries, check-ups, screenings, common chronic diseases etc. Because insurance is used for commonly expected healthcare, it essentially means that everyone is paying a third party (the insurance company) to then pay a doctor for what they know they will likely need and so instead of paying one entity, they pay two. This will never cost less! And because insurance is paid before the illness or medical expense, the doctor/hospital can charge whatever they want and the insurance company can’t really say no (not in a meaningful way anyway) and so you see prices skyrocketing almost monthly.
Btw, I’m referring to insurance but I’m including government insurance programs as well, but they are actually even worse at exacerbating the problems due to rampant fraud, waste and abuse.
I’m sure my lay person break down of the problem is probably simplistic and short sighted in some areas but I think it’s an aspect that isn’t considered very often when people talk about the problems with capitalism and medicine. I really don’t think capitalism is the core problem. We essentially have more of a socialized/capitalism hybrid without any of the cost saving measures that socialized medicine has.
My husband and I have experienced many different levels of coverage and it’s really taught me a lot about the financial situation. Currently we use a health sharing program and it’s fascinating dealing with trying to pay a medical office when you tell them that you are paying with cash. I could give many examples of what we have experienced and how odd it is. In a capitalist model without the “insurance” insertion, a medical office would know what the prices are. Sometimes it takes my husband a few hours to work out the billing problems just because we pay in cash and that’s after we’ve already paid and we get more additional bills from the billing company that the doctors office or hospitals send off to a few months later. I don’t know what the percentage of people pay out of pocket is but I’m guessing it’s less than 1%. This is why I think looking at it and thinking the problems lies with capitalism is flawed reasoning.
Again thank you for this article. I definitely learned a lot. It’s a fascinating read!