Democrats Hope To Beef Up Medicare With Dental, Vision And Hearing Benefits

Sgt (Join to see) - You are clearly wrong because you can't provide evidence that there is, "$60 Billion in fraud annually".

If you can provide evidence for this please do so. I've pointed out the sources you tried to use don't say what you stated they said.

You clearly do not understand what a commodity is. There are very few real commodities in the world. Gasoline is an example of a commodity. It is pretty much the same everywhere you go, the prices and quality is known before purchase and there are multiple sources of gas that most people can easily get to.

You stated:
"If one doctor is charging $1000 for a procedure and another is charging $10,000 for the same procedure, people will go to the cheaper one. That's the free market at work. If you have a health issue, you can choose to go to one hospital or the one down the street."

So if you are unconscious in the back of an ambulance you somehow are comparing the price of doctors (good luck finding that because they make that information very difficult to get) and telling the ambulance drivers which hospital to take you to for your heart attack? Interesting, because I'd sure like to know how you are doing that. Also let me know if you have the option of deciding that all the doctors are too expensive and just not getting that heart attack care at all. Because if you can't do all of those things, you don't have the prerequisites for a free market.

SPC Kevin Ford - It sucks admitting you're wrong, huh Kevin. You're even ignoring your own post that you tried to use to refute mine.

com•mod•i•ty kə-mŏd′ĭ-tē►
n.
Something useful that can be turned to commercial or other advantage.
n.
A product or service that is indistinguishable from ones manufactured or provided by competing companies and that therefore sells primarily on the basis of price rather than quality or style.
n.
Advantage; benefit.

Yes. Healthcare is a commodity. Any service is a commodity. It's a commodity because it can be traded, usually to the benefit each party. The doctor treats me and I pay him. Commodity. You give me a pretzel and I give you money. Commodity.
And whether or not the price or quality is known is irrelevant. I don't know if the pretzel I'm buying is good or not if I've never had one before. And what is good is open for debate because it's completely subjective.

Using an ambulance example is how you try to refute that? That's a false flag because many more people walk in to hospitals than arrive by ambulance. And yes, having worked in the public sector here in town, patients routinely tell the ambulance drivers which hospital they want to go to.
And do you have the option of not going to the hospital at all? You sure do. Whether it's a wise decision or not is again all subjective.

Sgt (Join to see) - "A product or service that is indistinguishable from ones manufactured or provided by competing companies and that therefore sells primarily on the basis of price rather than quality or style."

Lol. "sells primarily on the basis of price". I'll take the quality question out for right now. For the three closest hospitals to you, what is the price you will pay if you have a heart attack tomorrow? If you can't easily tell me that with a quick bit of research, it isn't selling based on price and isn't a commodity.

Now I can tell you they won't have a rate card that says for a heart attack this is what it will cost. You are going to have to know what types of services and items you are likely to receive at the hospital for the average heart attack and add them up based on how you will pay (insurance, etc) and know if anyone who might treat you is out of network. I suspect very few people outside of the medical field know that even to begin with. Even if you know what the average service provided for a heart attack, that doesn't mean that's what you will experience.

If we don't know the price that we are going to pay for an event until after we get the bill, by definition that is a product that is not being sold primarily on the basis of price and therefore can't be a commodity.

Outside of elective care it is almost impossible to buy based on price. Either because we have no realistic way to find out what the price will be beforehand, we are not physically capable of looking at price or communicating our intent at the time of the event, or we will die if we don't get the treatment and will get it regardless of price. No normal ability to buy based on price, no commodity.

SPC Kevin Ford - Walking in to a doctor's office, if you don't know what you're paying for a check up, that's your fault, not the fault of you misidentifying it as a commodity. And if you don't know what hospital has better service or better pricing for it's services, again, that's your fault because you're lazy and don't want to do the work.