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Comment by VikingCoder | Hacker News Reader

This is a terrible idea.

Which is better, a CT Scan for $1000 or one for $10,000?

You probably guessed the cheaper one, right? Thinking "all CT Scans are the same," right? I happen to know that's not remotely true, but it's easy to think that saving money on a test would make sense, right?

Okay, now which is better, open-heart surgery for $20,000 or $200,000?

That's a lot harder to answer, isn't it?

You need to know the outcomes of those procedures at that facility, compared to other facilities, to have any possible way to judge them.

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This is free market working correctly. Transparency is important. You should have information about the price AND outcome. It is not mutually exclusive.

Healthcare should not be a market.

If you need a heart transplant, and I know you need a heart transplant, you're in kind of a lousy position to negotiate, aren't you?

I don't buy some Defense tokens or insurance on some market. I pay taxes for National Defense.

Don't get me wrong, capitalism is awesome. And I worked in healthcare software for about 13 years. But applying capitalism to basic, necessary healthcare is no good.

This is exactly it. We want both.

Imagine saying, do you want a $300 used iPhone or a $600 used iPhone? Pick one. You don't have enough information to make the decision but at least you know the price difference.

> You need to know the outcomes of those procedures at that facility, compared to other facilities, to have any possible way to judge them.

How about ... both? Knowing "outcomes" AND pricing would allow me to made an educated decision. Lacking one, or the other? Not so much.

Healthcare should not be a market.

Forcing people to decide "For $5,000 more, I have a 2% greater 5-year survivability" is inhumane.

We can do better. Other countries have done better. Our healthcare is more expensive, and our outcomes are worse. Capitalism does not work in healthcare.

Healthcare is a market all over the world, including across all of the developed world.

What do you think Sanofi is exactly? That's the giant French pharma corporation that sells drugs in a global healthcare market.

How about all the excellent German medtech device makers? They sell their products in a global healthcare market.

How about Switzerland, Germany, Japan? They all have regulated healthcare markets, and they're three of the best healthcare systems on earth.

If you're a radiologist in the EU, you're selling your skill in a market. If one country won't pay you what you want, you can try to go to another market and earn more.

The doctor-patient relationship should not require money from the patient (or insurer) to the doctor to compensate for services provided.

If businesses want to produce goods and services that governments pay for, in order to provide healthcare to the citizens, that's great.

Even some price transparency is better than none.

Outcomes of procedures are already public information. This is not the case for prices.

Outcomes of procedures _at a specific location_ are already public? Do tell.

I don't know why I'm being downvoted. Hospitals are ranked and they do have outcomes of procedures available. For example, when my wife and I were looking into IVF, hospitals and medical centers were ranked based on their success rate for various procedures. And on the contrary, prices were not easily available without first going through a few interviews.

Now, outcome data is probably not available for every single procedure.

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