OFF: consumer economics (was: Hawkwind MP3's)

[nickmedford at HOTMAIL.COM]

On Tue, 8 Apr 2003 02:17:05 -0400, nickmedford at HOTMAIL.COM wrote:

>On Mon, 7 Apr 2003 15:56:50 +0100, M Holmes <fofp at HOLYROOD.ED.AC.UK> wrote:
>
>>
>>Whereas in our socialised medical system, they die queueing for
>>operations at zero price. If the price is too low then demand exceeds
>>supply and some of it goes unsatisfied.
>
>
>Are you suggesting that if people in the UK had to pay for (say) coronary
>artery bypass grafts, then fewer British people would require them?
>
>If you're not suggesting that, what does your above paragraph mean?

OK, I'm being unnecessarily obtuse, so I'll clarify. I assume you mean that
if money was changing hands, then the service would improve, waiting list
times would decrease, etc., and thus demand would no longer exceed supply.
But these kinds of assumptions about supply and demand may not be as
readily applicable to healthcare as to buying a loaf of bread, to use your
other example.

When you buy a loaf of bread, you can be pretty sure you're getting the
same as the next person who's also buying bread. But two people going for a
similar operation are not in the same situation: firstly their underlying
medical problems will not be identical, although they may be similar. They
may receive quite different standards of surgery and aftercare. They may
respond in very different ways to the anaesthetic, the surgery itself, and
any other aspects of the treatment. One may develop fatal complications
while the other does not. And so on.

In short, I'm extremely wary of theories of health economics where medical
interventions are conceptualised as being like consumer goods on a
supermarket shelf.

For what it's worth, I believe it would be possible to run a better health
service without having to pour further billions into it- but only if some
bold moves were made first. The biggest cause of overspend in many NHS
trusts is money spent on agency nurses, because there aren't enough regular
nurses to staff the wards. If regular nurses' pay was doubled, I suspect
this would result in massive savings in the long run.

None of which has much to do with buying CD's.. which is sort of my point.

Nick