1. You can divide every healthcare claim into two portions, “within-deductible” and “excess-deductible.” If an individual claim goes up X% and the deductible remains constant, the within-deductible portion will increase by no more than X% and the excess-deductible portion will increase by at least X%. So “excess-deductible inflation” is always greater than overall inflation.

2. Real world data: the number of insurance underwriters who would find this idea relevant, and yet are unaware of it, is quite high.

3. More important real world data: deductibles tend to rise over time, even if

4. The cost of medical care has risen much faster than general inflation, from the ground-up.

5. The eagerness to embrace an explanation that *could* explain something, without bothering to do any work to see if it *does* in fact explain it, is quite revealing. Basically, some people seem to have a very strong need to believe that the assumption of perfectly competitive markets holds in the real world. This isn’t a terrible intellectual gambit (intellectual progress might be best made by tenacious individuals willing to focus on one type of explanation) but it’s tedious when such ideology makes one impervious to basic facts and alternate theories of the world.

Reduce regulations, make it easier to get a Doctors licence, set caps on malpractice lawsuits, and eliminate existing entitlement programs in order to let market forces reduce costs.

Or

Institute a single payer system similar to the NHS or Canada health.

I would be happy with either, but I think politically the second option is more probable in the long run.

You are the one who brought up AT&T, I just merely responded to it as an aside. Perhaps if Prof. Landsburg has a post on natural monopolies, and how it does or doesn’t apply to the concept of modern information networks, then we could have that discussion.

Im curious why we’ve wandered so far from our original topic. We seen to have derailed over the AMA topic, but Ill say again, I don’t have nearly enough information to form a position I could confidently defend.

I do have solid opinions of the benefits and faults of single payer systems like Canada Health and the NHS in England. I’ve lived under all the systems, and looked at a great many studies on the efficacy. I’ve agreed that market forces could be used to lower prices, but made the claim that American voters would never give up the existing entitlements that would be required to turn our health care system into a free market. Since a true free market system doesn’t seem to be politically viable, I choose to put my influence behind the single payer system as it seems to function in the 36 countries that have a higher approval rating by their populace than the US. (sitation: WHO report June 2000).

My main argument with both sides of the ‘debate’ is that they both resort to emotional pleas, and anecdotal evidence. “Do it for the Children!! Can you imagine your grandma with no health care?” Or “Going to the doctor will be like going to the DMV. They will have Death Panels deciding who lives or who dies!” Those kinds of arguments are worthless, and they make me want to bonk all their heads together. That’s how this entire discussion got started. You said you had this friend who lived in Canada, then you mentioned one state official who flew to the US for treatment, then you talked about an emotionally charged scene in a documentary. All those arguments are worthless! They serve no purpose furthering the discussion. Just as Michael Moores horrible mocumentary “Sicko” didn’t help. These kinds of arguments just further the divide between the two wings of the rotten carcass of our bird of state.

I state that I’m an empiricist because I know, without a doubt, that my positions on many issues might be dead wrong. I used to be entirely against public health care. All I heard about was waiting lines, and people refused service. Once I got a hold of the facts, and actually left my country and saw for myself, then I realized that it was all just propaganda.

Yet, it is indisputable fact that tens of thousands of foreigners have come to America to avail themselves of that system. Mo?

And, you’re mixing up theories of ‘public goods’ with ‘natural monopolies’. Not to mention entirely ducking any explanation of what you believe about AT&T’s necessity as a monopoly.

It sounds as though you have some vague idea of ‘network effects’ creating a natural monopoly in telephony. There is extensive literature casting doubt on the advisability of government making that decision. You might start with:

http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/palgrave/network.html

I hold that position because of evidence presented to me. If someone has better evidence, I would gladly consider it. If it was convincing, I would change my position.

As to the cozy relationship between the AMA and government, I stated earlier that today is the first time that I had seen that information. I am still forming an opinion, and just saying (typing) how I feel about the information that Ive seen so far. I know next to nothing on the AMA, and have a vacillating position on it at this time. Legally the AMA is a private company. I’m starting to wonder if they have the same types of conflicts of interest as public universities, but that might be an entirely different topic.