It may be that the service provider (in this case, a doctor) realises that to price too many people out would be an optimisation that ignores that not all kinds of suffering are equal e.g. yes, optimise the pricing of Playstations and flight tickets and some people will miss out and feel bad, but the suffering of those priced out of a medical procedure is worse.
On the other hand, if we allowed a freer market in medicine (anywhere, no particular target country in mind), seeing doctors make more money treating something should spur on new trainees, thus more doctors in that specialism, and hence price drops and improvements in waiting times and possibly techniques, but that would require that freer market that so many seem against.
Doctors are a finite resource. Ultimately you have to ration that resource.
You can do it based on social status and wealth (America) or on medical necessity.
Obviously this is HN were people have money so they are upset if they are put on a waiting list.
We don't hear much about the people from trailer parks getting million dollar cancer treatments thanks to the public healthcare system.
Partly because other professions, like banking, attract greater remuneration. It's also why you'll notice that many new doctors (in the US) choose the ROAD, for many reasons[1], but this one stands out:
> The amounts of money that can be made in dermatology and plastic surgery are a temptation that many people cannot resist
If you want more doctors, and more doctors in things like primary care, then offer incentives. Money is a good one. You may also ask if plastic surgery is still an expense that only a wealthy elite can access, as it was in the past, or if it's become quite commonplace, and then, since it has, why. Could it be that the usual processes that other capitalist goods follow also work in healthcare?
The other side of that is training enough doctors. I think it would be a good question to ask why so few are trained, and I wouldn't be surprised if one of the reasons is that the guild itself, as all guilds do, limits the number of new entrants. That's speculation on my part.
> Obviously this is HN were people have money so they are upset if they are put on a waiting list.
I thought that everybody gets upset if they're put on a (long) waiting list so I'm not sure what need the ad hominem in your comment serves.
> that would require that freer market that so many seem against.
I’m not sure that medicine could ever be a poster child for the free market. It’s tightly regulated for good reason. Is there anywhere that has free market medicine? I’d like to read about it, but wouldn’t want to use such a system.
You think the kind of regulations that are being discussed in this thread are good things? They don’t seem to benefit anyone but insurance companies. Tell me, why shouldn’t you be able to walk into a doctor’s office and they be able to tell you how much a test costs? I wonder what regulation makes that impossible and what intended good it is supposed to make possible.
> Tell me, why shouldn’t you be able to walk into a doctor’s office and they be able to tell you how much a test costs?
I can. I live in New Zealand.
Medical practice here is plenty regulated and complying with these regulations is a meaningful percentage of my day job. Not all of it is worthwhile, lots is.
No, that's anarchy. A free market is one where market forces are allowed to work. A market captured by monopolists and anti-competitive agreements is not free at all.
Take a small market store selling product A and product B. Whichever sells more at a given price wins more profit, great. Free market forces are at work. But then (anything goes, after all) the manufacture for A comes in and says to the store owner: if you sell product B we'll firebomb your market and kill your dog. So then the small market stops selling product B. Now, the small market only sells product A and at a huge markup.
Is product A actually better? Does the consumer win?
Regulations are necessary so the manufacture of A can't do that and make sure that the market is actually free.
That's a well-regulated market not a free market. I completely agree that regulation is needed, and better by the people than by the biggest bully in the market.
On the other hand, if we allowed a freer market in medicine (anywhere, no particular target country in mind), seeing doctors make more money treating something should spur on new trainees, thus more doctors in that specialism, and hence price drops and improvements in waiting times and possibly techniques, but that would require that freer market that so many seem against.