Comment by theteapot
3 days ago
> I take issue with the claim that in order to say something is too expensive that you must be able to precisely propose an alternative price.
If you want to be quantitative of course you do. How hard is it? Margin of error is allowed. If you want to be qualitative, vague and wishy washy, that has its place too, but at some point someone is going to ask for a quantitative assertion, otherwise you get nowhere.
To use a software development analogy, the average person is a user of health care, not a health care project manager or designer.
Just as the user of an App doesn't need to provide an alternative design when they say "this App sucks", the average user of healthcare likewise has no obligation to redesign the healthcare system when they say "this healthcare system sucks."
Really apples and oranges comparison. But even so, if a certain App user is motivated to have the hostile App developer make a change that doesn't server their interest, they'll need to do better than cry "this app sucks".
yes. But the more likely action is that they download another app and delete yours. Most apps are "free", so the competition is fierce to keep that market happy. The dev is always beholden to the volatile audience.
It is apples and oranges, though. Because 1) apps are hardly a critical need for the populace and 2) software margins are even more difficult to find that "line" to than physical resources.
I'm sure that medicine needs some higher than average markup in order to make up for R&D, ingredients, and various regulations to get it approved for human patients. But very unlikely 1000%. And only 1000% because of questionable vertical integration that lets UHC charge UHC however much it wants to itself.
It's even worse than you're saying actually, because health care has no price transparency, very little consumer choice, no negotiating power on the part of the user and even the services provided are extremely opaque.
To be honest, I'm quite surprised you're siding with the provider here. Are you personally satisfied with healthcare pricing in the United States? Do you not share my intuition that in general, healthcare is too expensive and inefficient?
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"overcharge" is a qualitative source. If you're not working in the economics, I don't see much worth in finding the exact line between such a qualitative word. The market has some intuitiveness and know that charging 30$ for an item that costs $3 to make is highway robbery. Doesn't matter when or if we start to agree that $5, $6, or even $10 is reasonable (and yes, these are all pretty high markups to begin with compared to typical markups for stores).
We don't need to find the touchdown line when we're already outside of the stadium and the parking lot anyway.