4 years in office and babies are dying in increasing numbers.

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by jeff

Whatever do you mean by that?

I mean that monetary costs are no the only costs. If you have to wait longer for treatment because demand is inflated by lower-than-market prices, for instance, that's a cost. If you can't get treatment for a given condition at all because there isn't enough to go around, that's a cost, too. It's just that opportunity costs are harder to quantify than pecuniary ones...but that doesn't mean an assessment which ignores them is accurate for purposes of normative comparisons.

Other developed countries spend less by per capita and % GDP on health care than we do, with better longevity and mortality.

Cum hoc ergo prompter hoc?

Opportunity costs are heavier where more money is spent, preventing it being spent on new opportunities

Opportunity cost needn't involve money at all; it's just the "cost" of a foregone alternative use of a resource.

[jeff]

Nearsightedness? No way: Aetna and US Healthcare just recorded record profits. It can be very lucrative to squeeze the providers and ration/deny care to patients.

Since malpractice doesn't _directly_ (but, see next paragraph) affect the prices charged by doctors and hospitals (as they don't get to set the rates they pay to the HMOs) they're more a part of making medicine unprofitable for the providers than in raising healthcare costs.

However - and this is to the other point you raise - there are a lot more medical alternatives available now, and a lot of expensive tests that can be ordered. So, a doctor is more likely to order MRIs (whether they think they're needed or not) than they otherwise would, especially if the patient demands one. It's their neck if there's a problem (whether the diagnostic procedure would have found it or not) and the patient sues. So, malpractice indirectly increases costs: doctors order more diagnostic tests just to fend off lawsuits.

[lochinvar]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

Cum hoc ergo prompter hoc?

Inquartata! I'm scandalized!

It's "propter", not "prompter"! (And you call yourself a Latin scholar...)

[ElMariachi]

However - and this is to the other point you raise - there are a lot more medical alternatives available now, and a lot of expensive tests that can be ordered. So, a doctor is more likely to order MRIs (whether they think they're needed or not) than they otherwise would, especially if the patient demands one. It's their neck if there's a problem (whether the diagnostic procedure would have found it or not) and the patient sues. So, malpractice indirectly increases costs: doctors order more diagnostic tests just to fend off lawsuits.

I was actually quoting what my Dad had told me about the whole process, I actually know nothing about tort reform, suprised?

[jeff]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

I mean that monetary costs are no the only costs. If you have to wait longer for treatment because demand is inflated by lower-than-market prices, for instance, that's a cost. If you can't get treatment for a given condition at all because there isn't enough to go around, that's a cost, too. It's just that opportunity costs are harder to quantify than pecuniary ones...but that doesn't mean an assessment which ignores them is accurate for purposes of normative comparisons.

I take your point. As you say, it is very difficult to assess the economic cost due to delayed treatment. What's the economic cost of delaying a 70-year-old's hip replacement? Maybe none (which isn't to say it shouldn't be done, of course). Or, to factor in the delays in treatment in our healthcare system as people navigate the approvals process from HMOs? Or to account for the resources taken from "doing medicine" to "advertising Viagra".

Originally Posted by Inquartata

Cum hoc ergo prompter hoc?

Ah, a cross language pun, nice.

Originally Posted by Inquartata

Opportunity cost needn't involve money at all; it's just the "cost" of a foregone alternative use of a resource.

Certainly. It does seem that we have higher costs (of all forms of cost) in the US all around. Direct $ costs, plus higher administrative and legal costs.