It admittedly gets murkier when the consequence of not getting treatment is death or long-term disability. Is “Give me $1 million or I will let you die” any better than “Give me $1 million or I will kill you”? I’m not sure. All I know for certain is that I would never want to tell someone either.

In an ideal capitalist system (admittedly such a thing is as unrealistic as any other “ideal” system :)), the incentives would work in favor of good, cheap healthcare rather than exploitation. People will ideally choose the providers that offer the best value for the money. The reward for exploiting your customers is ideally that you no longer have any customers, as they have flocked to someone else providing a better value. If existing providers are all offering high prices, there is ideally a huge incentive to enter the market as a supplier, offer lower prices, and take all of the customers.

As you point out in the original article, this works well for a lot of things but isn’t working out very well for healthcare in the US. A hybrid system that provides basic care on the taxpayer’s dime, but still allows people to opt in to better care may well be the best practical compromise between the two ideals of capitalism and socialism.

At any rate, thanks for giving me something worthwhile to think about while I’m at work. :) It’s always a pleasure to read other people’s perspectives and try to formulate my own into actual English sentences.

Dmoney:
Is coercion any better if it comes in the form of red ink? The problem being here, is that for a Capitalized system the incentives are setup to foster exploitation rather than to reward good care. Socialized health care is far from perfect for sure and I would love to see a healthy hybrid of the two working in the US. Most of the best healthcare systems in the world are a mix of public and private. Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and Sweden are all this way. They have private clinics that take anyone who has private insurance, as well as public hospitals that will take both public and private insurance. Its sad that this myth of these two systems being mutually exclusive is so prevalent here.

Jeremy:
You’re right, it would reduce costs somewhat, but it wouldn’t be a huge change. Tort fees and malpractice settlements only account for 0.46% of total health care spending in the US. Source

Thanks for the Comments guys, its always good to have feedback!

But aside from the fact that corporations have the capability to raise prices (which when done reasonably makes sense), what kind of impact do you think frivolous lawsuits have on prices for medical services? Do you think that caps should be placed on lawsuits, as well as a “loser pays” system for lawyer’s fees?

After all, before we became an incredibly litigious society, a man could pay for his family’s medical bills without breaking the bank. These lawsuits cost doctors big.

At least with a capitalist system I get to choose how much I think healthcare is worth. There are many areas I would rather invest my resources in than trying in vain to keep myself alive forever, and if we as a culture didn’t put such a ridiculous emphasis on life-at-any-cost, the market wouldn’t charge us so much for it. :)