Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I wish I could take credit, but I'm not facile enough with the Google to have done that intentionally.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Except it's not, and saying it's absurd is incorrect.

Don't dissemble. I'm not trying to "win," and this is not a zero sum game. It's a discussion, and I just wanted to expose an overlooked perverse incentive that warps prices.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

It's not a joke.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Every once in awhile I have the pleasure of sitting down with our health care group, which among other things represents physician groups and practices, to whom the whole "antitrust" thing is a bit foreign. The one message that's completely clear from those conversations, however, is how the docs are getting fat on how much they get to charge third party payers :rolleyes:

Re: national brotherhood week
 

Everyone thinks everyone else is overpaid while they are overworked.

Docs and hospitals, blame drug companies and device manufacturers, who blame third party payors, who blame hospitals and doctors, who then blame each other. And everyone blames the lawyers.

Re: national brotherhood week
 

Every one of those groups except the lawyers is overpaid in our system. ;)

But more seriously, sure, docs inflate the reported headline price but that doesn't imply that insurers aren't ultimately getting the lowest available price.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

It is absurd, and your ability to use the Google to find an obscure article by an obscure law professor in an obscure journal doesn't change that. In reality, Avis gets better prices when it buys cars than you do.

All else equal, a seller of goods may be able to get some relative benefit from anchoring with a high initial price. But all else is not equal, and the other benefits that insurers have in negotiating with providers are considerable. Moreover -- and this seems to be another key point that you have no answer to -- if anchoring gives an advantage in negotiations with insurers, it surely gives no less of an advantage in negotiations with individual consumers.

You haven't identified a perverse incentive. You've discovered that health-care providers want to charge as much as they can for their services, just like any other for-profit enterprise.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I could offer dozens of articles showing how the TPA system warps prices. Did you see the footnotes in the paper? They're more than half the page on many pages.

I said the TPA system warps prices. I supported my contention. I suggested that a system in which that warping was removed could lower costs across the board. You have responded to that by simply repeating, "Insurance gets the consumer a better price on preventative care!" You still have not addressed the argument that removal of the TPA system for preventative care could provide savings on ALL forms of care, in aggregate, which outweigh the preventative care savings from the TPA's intervention.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I did not take it as a joke. If you dislike a female politician because she's too schoolmarmy for you, it is based in misogyny. It's good of you to at least recognize that.

I have thought A LOT about our brand of misogyny over the last year. And I read (listened to the audiobook of) A Brief History of Misogyny by Jack Holland, which offers an interesting historical perspective, but alas ends before our current era and was more optimistic about present day when it ended in the early 2000's (the author died in 2004 and this book was published posthumously) than it might be if published today.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

You understand that the disagreement is about this part, right?

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

No. I had no idea.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Well good. Now that you know, you can provide some evidence for the assertion that is actually in question.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

You idiot. Seriously?

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

You ignore the papers focus on the total lack of rational relationship between the price charged by the provider and a true value of the service provided. This is not a situation where a provider is merely trying to get the best price for its services. This is a situation in which a third-party payer has created a scenario in which the provider is charging outrageous and unsupportable amount to offset bulk discounts.

The argument you are making is intentionally obtuse. That's not an allegation, but a logical conclusion, as there is no other reason for you to ignore the lack of rational relationship between the value and the price charged except in order to avoid recognizing the inflating effect of the TPA.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

What if you dislike a male politician because he is too schoolmarmy?

I think most people dislike the schoolmarmy of both sexes, reflexively. Ever heard anyone use the adjective in a positive sense?

It's one of those words like fastidious, or officious, which aren't technically insulting, but describe personality traits to which most people aren't drawn. "He's a hall monitor," "...typical rule custodian," etc.