Post #3822 J: Hidden Costs and Government-Controlled Healthcare: Reflections on a Hallmark Movie

via LFC on FB

Pricing Systems Obfuscated by Government Intervention

Around a dozen years back, I had moved to an apartment complex just west of Baltimore County. About 8 months into the lease, the complex announced it was going to convert the complex into condos, and we would have to leave by the time contractors were to start on our building. My apartment was one of the first to be affected, but it wouldn't be for a few months. I lost my job and interviewed for two out-of-state jobs in the midwest and Chicago. Basically I thought I would be relocating, but the offers fell through The apartment complex had offered me a deal on a terminal 6-month lease on a yet unscheduled apartment conversion, 2 bedrooms vs 1 bedroom. Among other things, I was between jobs and it would be an issue in an apartment search.

The new apartment was maybe 6 or so apartment buildings down the street. I really couldn't move the furniture myself, so I hired a moving company. (Today I would have rented a U-Haul and hired some independent mover helpers, like I've done on 3 of the last moves.) This is a long story just to provide context to a lesson I learned the hard way. I thought I had agreed to a flat price. So at one point I had a framed print, not something I would have bought for myself, but my Mom had given it to me and it had sentimental value. On the moving date, while the movers focused on major items, I worked on smaller unpacked items in trips between apartments; at one point, the main mover turned to me with my Mom's print and asked me if I wanted them to move it; I remember being confused by the question (and he didn't provide a context for the question). At the end I was given an invoice that included a number of unexpected surcharges amounting to over $100--including a $20 charge for moving that print (I'm not even sure the print was worth $20). I was irate as the mover quickly pointed out the surcharge list buried in the middle of all that paperwork I signed (who really reads all that crap? I thought we had an agreement in earlier discussions. It was deliberately deceitful for that mover not to point out that their carrying out that frame, which I could easily have just stuck in my car, would add $20 to the bill.  If I knew it would have cost an extra $20, I would have taken it. But the fact is, I'm responsible for signing off on paperwork I didn't read closely enough--I just wanted to get the movers started, and they took advantage of that. It's not ethical, bur it's legal.

So what does this all have do so with a healthcare meme and my pro-liberty perspective? Well, I want to point out I had two advantages in dealing with movers: there were other movers in a competitive market. My adverse review could cost them more than their $20 gain. This was money coming out of my savings; no company was footing the bill.  Second, I had a vested interest to minimize my moving costs--which theoretically included knowledge of surcharge items and trying to minimize them as much as I could. $426 is obviously an absurd markup on an $8 product. This kind of distortion is only possible where there is a lack of transparency in the market, which often reflects a corrupt, noncompetitive relationship between providers and government bureaucrats/policymakers (e.g., consider things like certificates of needs)

I've given other examples like when I sometimes had to go without insurance between jobs. Given a certain thyroid deficiency, I've had to get blood tests and prescriptions. I discovered I could get my blood drawn at the office and the lab work done for under $25; furthermore, I could get generic prescriptions filled for say under $10 at the Walmart pharmacy.

But third-party payers, i.e., health insurers through the workplace, a consequence government intervention designed by FDR et al. to work around economically illiterate wage and price controls, while still light years better than a monopolistic single-payer system, are a poor substitute for customer incentives to limit costs. Policyholders are more likely to use medical services given the understanding they have already paid for them. Me, if I had to go to a clinic without insurance, it was going to cost me $100+ a trip out of my savings. Of course, there was always the possibility of a catastrophic health care condition--but the Democrats had megalomaniac dreams of running the sector, not reforming in.

How I Would Have Edited a Hallmark Cable Movie

There was a recent movie (Pearl in Paradise) based on the search for a fabled clam blue pearl lost in the Fiji Islands. The fable is this young man years back found a giant blue pearl and wanted to use it to woo the heart of his crush and her parents' approval; tragically he lost the pearl in a storm and spent the rest of his life searching for the pearl, unrequited love.  At some point the pearl was recovered and later buried. There was a legend of whoever found the pearl would also find the love of his life.

A male romance writer (Colin) who mostly wrote about foreign locations he never visited, based one of his novels (the movie title) on the legend. Alex. a widely traveled female photographer, has been pitched on a major anniversary story for her magazine publisher employers, paired with Colin, to recover the fabled pearl.
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I'm not going to repeat the story in detail; in many way, the storyline is predictable: opposites attract, and it's unlikely that they won't somehow find the pearl. (It's somewhat ridiculous that all the writings and inscriptions are conveniently in English, hardly the first language in Fiji (it remains an official language as a former English colony), but go with it for the sake of the story.)

A key scene in the movie is when Alex gets set to photograph the fabled pearl for the magazine and Colin stops her, reading a somewhat obscure inscription to the effect "those who are worthy of the pearl cannot have found the pearl".

And this is the point where the movie loses me. Colin then goes on this weird monologue about how finding the pearl destroys the faith in the legend of the pearl, as if faith is preferable to the fact and reason of the pearl, that the recovered pearl loses its mystique displayed in some sterile museum or whatever.

And for the life of me, I don't know why the writer didn't forward what seems to be a more obvious message: the pearl is not about its possession but in the journey in life to find love, which is far more precious. It wasn't the pearl that the native wanted, but what it might bring to him, his unrequited love. And if you've stumbled into your one true love in its pursuit, what need do you have of the pearl? You've become part of the legacy of the pearl; leave it for future lovers to seek.