Thread by @eastvillagetwt

@LibertyCappy LASIK is a narrow, elective service in a highly controlled market. Real healthcare has to handle the entire messy reality of human illness — emergency, chronic, unpredictable, & life-saving.

Govt. doesn’t cause high costs — unregulated private complexity and profiteering do.

@LibertyCappy LASIK isn’t cheap because it’s “free market.” It’s cheap because it’s simple, standardized, & elective.

Single, low-risk procedure: LASIK is a routine, outpatient surgery done under local anesthesia. No hospital stay, minimal risk, and the same few tools used thousands of times.

@LibertyCappy Cash-based, not insurance-based: Because everyone pays out of pocket, clinics compete directly on price and marketing. There’s a limited range of services and few surprises.

@LibertyCappy LASIK is High volume + predictable results = lower cost: Surgeons can do dozens a day, reusing equipment and streamlining costs. It’s the same principle as mass production.

@LibertyCappy So LASIK’s price stability comes from simplicity, competition, and scale — not from the absence of government or insurance.

@LibertyCappy Medical procedures covered by insurance are different in nearly every way.

Highly variable: Surgeries for appendicitis, cancer, or heart disease are unpredictable — they differ in duration, complexity, and patient condition.

@LibertyCappy Hospital environment: These require anesthesiologists, nursing teams, sterile rooms, ICU backup, post-op care — and hospitals have huge fixed costs to maintain 24/7 readiness.

@LibertyCappy Billing complexity: When insurers (public or private) negotiate prices, they build in administrative overhead, cross-subsidization, and safety-net funding.

@LibertyCappy Emergency mandate: Hospitals must treat you even if you can’t pay (by law under EMTALA). That “free care” cost gets built into other bills.

So comparing LASIK to hospital surgery is like comparing a car wash to a car repair shop that must fix anything, anytime, for anyone.

@LibertyCappy The claim that “government makes healthcare expensive” ignores that the U.S. has the least socialized system—and the highest costs.

@LibertyCappy The U.S. spends far more per person on healthcare than any country in the world — about twice as much as the OECD average — yet has the least publicly run system.

@LibertyCappy Countries with “socialized medicine” (like the UK, Canada, France, or Japan) all spend less and achieve better average health outcomes.

@LibertyCappy The driver of cost in the U.S. is private-sector pricing power, not government control. Hospitals and insurers negotiate opaque, inflated prices because there’s no centralized price control.

@LibertyCappy If “government trying to make things cheap” caused costs to explode, those other countries would be bankrupt — but they’re not.

@LibertyCappy Why insured surgeries look expensive in the US
List prices are fake: The “$50,000 surgery” figure is a sticker price used for negotiation; insurers pay far less.
Cross-subsidies: Hospitals charge more for insured patients to cover losses from uninsured or underinsured patients.

@LibertyCappy Administrative bloat: Private insurance adds layers of billing, coding, and denial management — 15–25% of costs are administrative, not medical.
Fragmented system: Every insurer, hospital, and state has its own rules. Centralized systems negotiate once, transparently, for all.

@LibertyCappy That logic is like saying:

“McDonald’s burgers are cheap — why can’t ER surgeries be?”

LASIK is a narrow, elective service in a highly controlled market. Real healthcare has to handle the entire messy reality of human illness — emergency, chronic, unpredictable, and life-saving

@LibertyCappy Government involvement doesn’t cause high costs — unregulated private complexity and profiteering do.

@LibertyCappy @threadreaderapp unroll