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Comment by uadnils | Hacker News Reader

1. The statement "it’s clear that those high prices weren’t doing their job" and subsequent disagreement with raising the price cap does not make sense to me. Any artificial price cap seems to limit the effectiveness of a market. From the producer's side, it limits the incentive to model and capture these tail events (e.g. winterize). From the consumer's side, it limits the incentive to reduce consumption. Is my perspective off here?

2. Is it possible to subscribe to two (or n) energy plans? Imagine subscribing to a wholesale plan (e.g. Griddy) and a fixed-rate plan and switching between them whenever wholesale prices rise above the fixed rate. Are there legal or practical reasons this can't happen?

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For #2, I bet that it would drastically cut into energy company profits and thus is not politically practical in TX.

Even a non-profit utility would not agree to be the fixed rate provider in this scenario. It would be a guaranteed money loser, for the same reason that I can’t buy auto insurance just after I crash my car, or health coverage just after I’m diagnosed with cancer.

I mean, except you can do the latter. The whole "must cover pre-existing conditions" thing. Market still manages to function, and even without the individual mandate. How exactly? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So, to start, this is why single-payer, or national coverage is needed in the US. The risks must be spread out.

> Market still manages to function, and even without the individual mandate. How exactly?

The ACA tried to address this question with the individual mandate. It also has an enrollment period. You can't sign up on a whim.

Those two features were meant to prevent opportunistic purchases of health plans. Only buying the second you need it, rather than paying in consistently over many years.

It doesn't seem to be working well, because our healthcare market is hardly "functional" from the user's perspective.

I'd say that's because healthcare is something that fundamentally cannot be subject to market forces. Your life is literally priceless, and your health is worth more than you own. It is not a good or a service or a commodity, so it cannot be priced according to basic market theory.

In the US, our healthcare market isn't functioning. In other countries, they've solved for this by eliminating the market aspect, and treating healthcare the same as roads, fire, police, etc.

Practical reason is that the fixed-rate provider would not want to do business with you. You would only use their service when they lose money.

So they’d require exclusivity as a condition for service.

For #1, you simply mandate it as a requirement. Many things are mandated to generator owners by regulatory bodies that the generator owners would never opt for otherwise. This is no different. The regulatory body should make the decision about what is necessary to deal with low-probability events, not market participants.

>2)...Are there legal or practical reasons this can't happen?

A) That would essentially be energy futures trading.

B) No sane power company is going to take on new customers when they can barely keep up with demand already.

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