[avar]

I'm aware of your and the GP's claim, I'm saying it doesn't survive contact with reality.

If you look at e.g. the per-dose price of insulin it's as low or lower in countries with single-payer universal systems, where someone requiring insulin is never going to have any idea what it even costs, because it's just something that's provided for them should they need it.

In that case it's usually some centralized state purchaser that has an incentive to bring prices down, or a government that has an overall incentive to keep the inflation of its budgetary items down, which ultimately comes down to public elections etc.

In any case, a much more indirect mechanism than someone who'd be directly affected paying the costs associated with the product, which directly contradicts this particular argument.

[lyu07282]

Why do you even argue against someone that doesn't think "insurance" should exist? Its a troll, not even most serious libertarian freaks are that idiotic. Our goal should be to make sure these freaks have no power.

OF COURSE single-payer means lower prices, the government has a shit ton of power in negotiating prices if they want to. They don't want to because they are corrupt, freaks like the above are only there to rationalize the theft. They need to be defeated politically.

[int_19h]

The original argument wasn't against public healthcare per se, but against the US system in which it really is run as insurance, with multiple competing providers, who therefore don't have the power to negotiate down prices.

It's very easy to find examples of abuse in this system. For example, in modern "factory towns" around corporate campuses, somehow, routine dental maintenance costs exactly the maximum amount provided for this purpose by the employee health plan.