This is true as far as it goes, but:

This assumes a single solution to cost inflation which is not practicable because of the suffering it would entail.

Other countries do a fine job at curtailing cost inflation. All that's necessary is to recognize where the inflation is coming from, and accept the logical consequences. Specifically: the spiraling cost of health care comes from corporate profits in an industry that has a captive market and inadequate competition, and no workable controls on pricing. Then, assuming a single-payer system of coverage, it's possible to say to (for example) pharmaceutical companies, "this is what will be paid for medication X. Take it or leave it."

I do understand that people who are committed to free-market solutions to all problems for ideological reasons won't like that idea. However, for a free-market solution to work, one of two conditions must apply:

1) The market must genuinely be free, which means that consumers must be able to choose not to buy the product at all without suffering unacceptable consequences. OR

2) There must be sufficient effective competition that prices are kept reasonable even if the market isn't genuinely free.

Neither of these conditions obtains in the health care market. As such, a free market in health care is impossible.

Putting aside the question of who "we" is in your statement, I doubt there'd be large savings. In any case, I think hospitals should be able to refuse treatment. Primarily because it would no longer be an excuse for this individual mandate crap. And it is and "excuse": the real reason for the provision is to guarantee insurance company profits in exchange for meaningless promises of universal coverage. Sure, they'll cover anyone, if the premiums are high enough.

Not necessarily. All the money currently being proposed to fund a public option, or other subsidies, could be invested in funding HSAs for low and middle income families. This would be money that is their's to keep if they don't spend it on medical expenses. Medical consumers would have incentive to price shop their health care, yet wouldn't be relying (at first at least) solely on their own savings or income.

Right, and you may consider it strictly an ideological position, but there are very good reasons why these sorts of value decisions are better made by individuals than by centralized authorities, namely that different people have different values.

Can't say I agree with your criteria for a "genuinely free" market. But why do claim there can't be sufficiently effective competition in health care? (I agree there isn't currently)

I can think of two right off the bat: Social Security (no matter what opinion one has of it, no elderly are missing any checks, which the elderly nevcer had before).

The New Deal's another one. The fact is people who wanted to go to work did and this coupled with labor support and like legislation started a great middle class.

World War II was actually a pretty good govenrment run program as well if memory serves: we defeated a world wide enemy, put more people to work than ever which lifted us out of what was left of the depression and we began the G.I. Bill (another winner) and the Marshall Plan wasn't half bad either.

I'm sure a few others will spring to mind later.

A tax preferred capital accumulation account for health care related purposes.

Ideally, an individual would be able to save money, tax exempt, for health care related purposes (e.g. health care premiums, co-pays, office visits, and other forms of health care insurance products and services).

Well, strictly speaking I shouldn't have included criterion #2. I should have said simply that no free market can exist where consumers don't have the practical choice of refusing to buy altogether. The reason for this is obvious, or should be: if you have no choice, you aren't free.

I included the second criterion because if there is sufficient competition the lack of a free market will not do much harm.

Because the only way to permit effective competition would be to lower effective quality and take unacceptable risks. For example, if we were to remove all safety and effectiveness requirements from medications, we would encourage competition and it's likely the cost of medications would drop. But the incidence of harmful, sometimes fatal results of medication would increase to an unacceptable degree. Similarly, as long as we're going to license physicians with exacting standards, hold them to high levels of responsibility for patient care, and otherwise insist upon safe and responsible medicine, we will limit competition. We should: the cost of allowing effective competition in this area is too high. But that means we cannot count on the effects of a competitive marketplace to hold prices down.

So would you say no free market can exist for food, for example? What about other "necessities"?

How about just let people decide for themselves how much risk is acceptable, or how much quality they can afford? What we've really done is set up regulatory environment where we decided, for everyone, what the minimum level of quality can be. Problem is, in the process (especially when combined with the cost inflationary pressures we've been discussing) we've priced health care out of reach of a large chunk of the market. It'd be like declaring that the only cars fit for use were Mercedes Benz, and then finding ourselves frustrated because no one can afford a car.

Unacceptable to whom? Telling people that can't have health care services that you deem unsafe is somewhat cruel when their alternative is no health care at all. We've gone a long way to make sure people can't take care of their own health issues, by regulating the drug market and criminalizing home remedies, and now we tell them they can't see a doctor unless they can afford the best.

Not everyone can afford the best. That's just one of the unfortunate aspects of a free market. We can't make that go away by passing laws.

what would like elaborated?

__________________
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

Guess who?

Indeed you cant but you can set minimum standards and decide to bear the costs of those.

__________________
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

Guess who?

Correct; however, as I also said, the food industry has enough effective competition that the harm is contained. That's not the case with health care.

To anyone who considers the facts without starting with a bias that says a hands-off free-market approach is always and automatically the best regardless of actual observable outcome.

The cruelty lies in the bolded portion. Allowing unsafe treatments is not a solution to it.

Every advanced nation in the world, except ours, solves this problem just fine, by recognizing that a "free market" in health care is an oxymoron and not to be sought. Socialized medicine is the norm among advanced nations, and all of them make it work. We're the odd nation out. We're the ONLY advanced nation in the world that doesn't provide universal health care. Obviously, then, it can be done, and it can be afforded, because everyone except us does it.

We should, too.

I am justified in my skeptical attitude towards Congress, apparently. We are now hearing that universal health care would have a $2 trillion price tag. Ridiculous.

The government could provide an insurance service that people could buy into, and if everyone was required to pay for it (which admittedly is not necessarily the best approach, but I'm just using it for illustration), the only costs would be administrative and those would run in the millions, not even the billions, even if every U.S. citizen and resident chose to participate.

The government could then subsidize lower-income participation in the plan. This would be somewhat more expensive, but it would replace Medicaid and so not be a from-zero-point expenditure, and there's no way it would rise to the $2 trillion level.

The only way that the program could cost $2 trillion is if it is heavily subsidized, beyond any necessity, and contains no provisions to suppress prescription drug and medical procedure costs. So when I hear that kind of figure trotted out, my thought is: "the fix is in, and we're betrayed once more." The proposal has such a high cost because it's designed to, in order to make it look bad and undercut public support. It doesn't have to be that way at all. The entire world, outside our borders, proves so.

Not really. It was pretty self-explanatory.

Then obviously we should do what everyone else does.

In any case, political reality is what it is, and we're not going to get deregulation through anything short of revolution, so I'm actually with you on socializing it. I don't think it's the best solution, but it's the best we have any chance of getting. The middle ground, where we regulate and let the corporations control it, is the worst of both worlds. The problem is, that looks like exactly where congress is headed.

I am of the opinion that we are better off solving poverty in our republic than we are socializing medicine.

COuldnt you have just said health savings account? And dont we already have bunches of those?

__________________
"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

-Thomas Jefferson