I feel that you are responding a different comment than mine. I have not said that it is a hyper-capitalistic free-for-all. Quite the opposite, from my comment;
> healthcare isn’t composed of one market, but several between different operators operating under different market forces and regulatory rules. As it’s too complicated to go into each, I’ll go into one that’s most apparent
The market that exists between Hospitals and Suppliers is different than Health Insurance and Consumers (and businesses) which is different from Insurance and Independent Providers... There isn’t one big “healthcare” market but several interacting with one another in removed ways.
My definition of a market is,
The term market refers to a situation where buyers (consumers) and sellers (producers) interact (directly or through intermediaries) to trade goods and services. It is a situation where forces of demand and supply interact to determine prices of goods and services being exchanged. Therefore, a market includes mechanism for: determining prices and quantities of the traded item, communicating information about prices, and for the distribution of the goods and services.
This can be argued to a certain degree for any modern commodity, but healthcare is a unique beast in how different forces for each market is and how interrelated they seem to be. However, I can be wrong about this part.
I have also said that I am proving my point in the context of an idealized free market. My goal is to show from first principles what pop literature seems to miss;
> Assuming the most idealized of cases that exist without external constraints and regulations, this market would never be a free market.
I have specified my definition of free markets elsewhere.
> healthcare isn’t composed of one market, but several between different operators operating under different market forces and regulatory rules. As it’s too complicated to go into each, I’ll go into one that’s most apparent
The market that exists between Hospitals and Suppliers is different than Health Insurance and Consumers (and businesses) which is different from Insurance and Independent Providers... There isn’t one big “healthcare” market but several interacting with one another in removed ways.
My definition of a market is,
The term market refers to a situation where buyers (consumers) and sellers (producers) interact (directly or through intermediaries) to trade goods and services. It is a situation where forces of demand and supply interact to determine prices of goods and services being exchanged. Therefore, a market includes mechanism for: determining prices and quantities of the traded item, communicating information about prices, and for the distribution of the goods and services.
This can be argued to a certain degree for any modern commodity, but healthcare is a unique beast in how different forces for each market is and how interrelated they seem to be. However, I can be wrong about this part.
I have also said that I am proving my point in the context of an idealized free market. My goal is to show from first principles what pop literature seems to miss;
> Assuming the most idealized of cases that exist without external constraints and regulations, this market would never be a free market.
I have specified my definition of free markets elsewhere.