The Platinum Living Network

“Perfect competition assumes standardized products and services, free entry and exit, and complete information.” The above partial definition of perfect competition surely doesn’t fit the medical field very well. But there are some aspects of medicine that do fit the definition, and others that could be made to fit better. And that is the topic for today. As I was thinking about this topic, I asked myself, “Why don’t I shop for medical goods and services like I do for other kinds of goods and services. There are basically two reasons. The first is that prices are practically invisible to me. The second is that even when they ARE visible, they often don’t effect how much I pay out of pocket. So here are my proposals. They are fairly simple steps that would improve competition. And they wouldn’t cost very much either. First, providers of medical goods and services should be required to post prices. For services, some standardization of categories would be required. My dentist wo...