Health Care Imperfect Market

I do not believe health care could be purchased in the same way other goods and services are purchased. The healthcare system in the United States is considered to be an imperfect market. Consumers are not sensitive to price in imperfect markets. For health care to be sold like other goods, it would need to be a perfect market. A perfect market is one where the buyers and sellers have complete or perfect information about the products and services. Also, it is easy to compare the prices of the products and services. It would be hard to compare prices in health care. Moreover, there can be many unforeseen costs in health care. An individual could go in thinking there are minor problems and walk out of the hospital finding out they have cancer

Similarly, to buying a car, costs are higher when you go through third-party payers, such as receiving a loan for the car. An individual would save money by paying out of pocket for the car and not relying on other people to pay for their car while tacking on interest. When too many parties are involved the costs go up, and I believe this is one of the problems with the healthcare system in the United States. The United States should look at a system that provides Universal health care through the government or a system where every citizen pays out of pocket for his or her health care. The problem of strictly paying out of pocket is that medical care is always changing. There are technology advancements that change the way health care is delivered, so prices for specific goods would always be changing. By the time an individual went back to the hospital for their next appointment, they might see increases in prices, which would eventually anger people. However, the United States has to come up with a system where Americans are not as insensitive to health care costs. Americans are insensitive to the price of health care because they are not the ones paying for it. I also feel citizens are insensitive to costs because the costs of specific goods are outrageously expensive and over

I believe I have encountered demand dissuasion in the past. A friend of mine was in the hospital delivering her baby. The hospital seemed in a hurry to discharge her, and she stayed in the hospital for only a night even though her insurance covered three nights. She did not mind leaving the hospital but felt rushed to get discharged. On the contrary, when I delivered my son I did not feel rushed to leave, and they kept me longer than I would have liked to stay. I am not surprised that costs of health care have increased, and the quality of healthcare has fallen. I did not know about the iron triangle before this class, but after learning about it, it made more sense. So overall, I feel that the United States could work with a Universal health care system and would save money on health care if the government had strong controls over the financing and delivery of health care. I believe for the Universal health care system to work that all other third party payers would have to go away. I think that there could still be programs like Medicare and Medicaid, but again there would have to be strong control and guidelines for these programs to work alongside a Universal health care