Reply #53: The government needs to regulate the price

[middleclassman]

I lived in Tokyo for many years. Every morning people commute from the suburb to work by train. Train is their only choice because the city is too crowded to have any real highway system.

In theory, the train company can charge as high price as they wish and people would still have to use the train. Fortunately, the train ticket price is controlled by government.

The broken health care system in US is similar to the case in Tokyo when the train ticket price is not under government regulation.

Health care simply does not work by free-market, because the demand curve in a quantity-price chart will go straight up in price because it cannot go below a certain quantity. The health insurance companies, pharmacies, doctors naturally try to maximize profit by charging very high price, because the demand cannot drop no matter how high the price is (actually when the price is so high that the demand starts to drop is when people starts to die and is the equilibrium today in US)

Suppose Hilary Clinton gives everybody $10000 to buy health insurance. The health provider will simply raise the price by $10000 and pocket every penny, and the same health care problem stays. It's only natural for Hilary Clinton to do so since she receive massive donation from health care companies. Probably the wise choice for us now is to start buying health care stocks.

In Japan and many other countries, the government sets the price paid to doctors for each type of operation they perform, and price for each type of medicine, the same way as they regulate the price of train tickets. It of course comes at the cost of doctors and drug companies. But that's the only choice when free-market principle does not work unless you want people to die in exchange for high stock price. It amazes me that I have never once heard anybody mentioning this on TV, it's just so telling how "un-democratic" america really is.