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Post by Don on Aug 1, 2017 9:31:50 GMT -5
Cosmetic surgery is optional. This is an apples and oranges comparison. I also disagree when people compare health insurance to car insurance (not that anyone here has done that). The value of even a nice, new car is roughly $40-$50k, though of course there are more expensive cars - and insurance fluctuates based on full coverage (coverage of your own, possibly expensive car) or the minimum (the damage you could do to someone else's car if you were at fault). But... cancer, diabetes, degenerative diseases, prescription meds that keep, well, DEATH, from happening... how do you put a value on that? What is the free-market price tag for living and not dying? The free market doesn't work so great with inelastic demand. We need to take the profit motive, i.e., the free market, out of healthcare. It's time. It's past time. IMHO. Absent the market, how are prices set? Absent a pricing structure to rank resource allocation, how are scarce resources allocated among competing needs? Absent the pricing signals that direct resources to their most-valuable use, how can the scarce resources available be most gainfully employed? There are only two ways to allocate resources; by bidding and trade, or by command. There is no third option. So who do you want issuing commands to you about your access to healthcare resources? Eliminate the free market and you have, by definition, a forced market. Who do you trust to do the strong-arming? Why do you believe they have the knowledge and wisdom to make decisions that impact billions of interactions between millions of consumers and providers, and that such decisions will improve the overall allocation of resources? These are all questions that are central to the real issue, which is health care, not health insurance.
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Post by Christine on Aug 1, 2017 20:02:31 GMT -5
Cosmetic surgery is optional. This is an apples and oranges comparison. I also disagree when people compare health insurance to car insurance (not that anyone here has done that). The value of even a nice, new car is roughly $40-$50k, though of course there are more expensive cars - and insurance fluctuates based on full coverage (coverage of your own, possibly expensive car) or the minimum (the damage you could do to someone else's car if you were at fault). But... cancer, diabetes, degenerative diseases, prescription meds that keep, well, DEATH, from happening... how do you put a value on that? What is the free-market price tag for living and not dying? The free market doesn't work so great with inelastic demand. We need to take the profit motive, i.e., the free market, out of healthcare. It's time. It's past time. IMHO. Absent the market, how are prices set? Absent a pricing structure to rank resource allocation, how are scarce resources allocated among competing needs? Absent the pricing signals that direct resources to their most-valuable use, how can the scarce resources available be most gainfully employed? There are only two ways to allocate resources; by bidding and trade, or by command. There is no third option. So who do you want issuing commands to you about your access to healthcare resources? Eliminate the free market and you have, by definition, a forced market. Who do you trust to do the strong-arming? Why do you believe they have the knowledge and wisdom to make decisions that impact billions of interactions between millions of consumers and providers, and that such decisions will improve the overall allocation of resources? These are all questions that are central to the real issue, which is health care, not health insurance. Putting aside all of your standard, predictable rhetoric, e.g., "strong-arming" and "commanding" and "forced market" (SMDH) ... I think major health care issues, as I referenced above, need to be a non-profit activity, funded with taxpayer dollars. I think regular health care/maintenance/routine doctor visits could likely stay free-market, with subsidies for those at or near poverty level, as I think rob or someone else mentioned upthread. Returning routine visits to the free market, without the insurance aspect, might make doctors more competitive and lessen or stop the rise of prices for these things, if doctors could just provide services without the bureaucracy and the paperwork. But the big stuff, the tumors and the diseases and the cancer and the surgeries and such... that's what I'm talking about, where free-market approach doesn't work. What people are willing to pay TO LIVE is not typical free-market fodder. It's not a television set or an iPhone or a boob job. There also isn't a hospital with an O.R. on every corner, competing for cancer patients. Sort of like there isn't a power plant on every corner, competing to provide people with electricity. And again, it's inelastic demand. Sick or dying people can't take it or leave it. They can't wait for a better deal. This is the reality. I think the money people pay via taxes (which they will no longer be paying for via exorbitant premiums) would be sufficient funding. The "set price," as you put it, for such medical services would simply be the cost for those services - the cost of medicines and supplies and wages and machines. No markup, no profit margins, no money in investors' pockets and no money to insurance companies. {Seriously, fuck the whole idea of insurance companies actually making a profit. That's just... it's just disgusting at this point.) Anyhoo. That's my take. I am open to realistic alternative solutions.
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Post by poetinahat on Aug 1, 2017 20:27:07 GMT -5
(responding to robeiae's post)
Ah, I see - fewer people automatically means more resources per capita. Yes, Australia, for one, is a very resource-heavy economy - which is all good, until the resources run out, or the commodity price drops. It's long been a topic of concern that mining is such a huge portion of the national economy, while manufacturing shrinks.
We've got our share of boneheads, to be sure (this makes me picture Pebbles and Sideshow Mel), and our debt per capita is pretty high, but I don't think it's up there with America's impossible situation.
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Post by maxinquaye on Aug 2, 2017 5:07:21 GMT -5
It just fascinates me that modern Conservatives are perfectly willig to waste countless resources on the very, very remote chance that someone will come along and blow you up. This to the point of destabilising entire regions of the globe; toppling governments and occupying whole countries. All in the name of health and safety. Yet, turn around and offer that the much more likely chance of cancer and infectious diseases should be prioritised, and the same government who will topple countries in the name of the vanishingly small chance of terrorism should aid in battling the much more prevalent cancer is suddenly about "but the federal government shouldn't do that! That's communism!" I'm not going to let the Democrats off the hook here either. They pursue the same illogical and incoherent policies. I was just reading about how Barack Obama is pushing for the former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick[1] to become the presidential nominee for the Democratic party in 2020. It blew my mind. If you cast your mind back to 2012, one of the defining points of that campaign was that Mitt Romney was unsuitable as president because he belonged to the "vulture capitalist outfit Bain Capital".[2] Guess where this former Massachusetts governor has been working for the last two years since he left office? I'm really not asking for much of politicians. The little I ask is that they have a pilot light, a north, a goal they want to travel to. Unfortunately, modern politics is more about capturing positions. Pragmatism, the ability to reach your goals by going on a meandering path toward it, has become "concede on everything that will threaten your position". I think much of modern politics come from this. I think that as politicians have socialised people that they stand for nothing, people have started to nod and agree, and decide that if the politicians stand for nothing, then you might as well put an abusive clown in the lead. And Robiae, Sweden is the size of California with a tenth of the population. Additionally, Sweden is the size of California located in Alaska. Half the year, this country deep freezes. It costs a lot more to run modern amenities here because of the climate. For one thing, mains and plumbing have to be dug to a depth where the earth's temperature is above freezing. Otherwise, the whole network of sewage and water supply would have to be rebuilt each year. We don't really have an abundance of natural resources, unless you think forests are that. We have forests. Lots and lots of forests. About half the country is wilderness forest. I don't buy the argument that since we have a smaller population, it is easier to have a modern society. [1] www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/01/obamas-inner-circle-is-urging-deval-patrick-to-run-215443[2] thinkprogress.org/newark-mayor-cory-booker-defends-bain-capital-attacks-obama-campaign-ddbfa660b397
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Post by Don on Aug 2, 2017 9:23:51 GMT -5
Absent the market, how are prices set? Absent a pricing structure to rank resource allocation, how are scarce resources allocated among competing needs? Absent the pricing signals that direct resources to their most-valuable use, how can the scarce resources available be most gainfully employed? There are only two ways to allocate resources; by bidding and trade, or by command. There is no third option. So who do you want issuing commands to you about your access to healthcare resources? Eliminate the free market and you have, by definition, a forced market. Who do you trust to do the strong-arming? Why do you believe they have the knowledge and wisdom to make decisions that impact billions of interactions between millions of consumers and providers, and that such decisions will improve the overall allocation of resources? These are all questions that are central to the real issue, which is health care, not health insurance. Putting aside all of your standard, predictable rhetoric, e.g., "strong-arming" and "commanding" and "forced market" (SMDH) ... I think major health care issues, as I referenced above, need to be a non-profit activity, funded with taxpayer dollars. I think regular health care/maintenance/routine doctor visits could likely stay free-market, with subsidies for those at or near poverty level, as I think rob or someone else mentioned upthread. Returning routine visits to the free market, without the insurance aspect, might make doctors more competitive and lessen or stop the rise of prices for these things, if doctors could just provide services without the bureaucracy and the paperwork. But the big stuff, the tumors and the diseases and the cancer and the surgeries and such... that's what I'm talking about, where free-market approach doesn't work. What people are willing to pay TO LIVE is not typical free-market fodder. It's not a television set or an iPhone or a boob job. There also isn't a hospital with an O.R. on every corner, competing for cancer patients. Sort of like there isn't a power plant on every corner, competing to provide people with electricity. And again, it's inelastic demand. Sick or dying people can't take it or leave it. They can't wait for a better deal. This is the reality. I think the money people pay via taxes (which they will no longer be paying for via exorbitant premiums) would be sufficient funding. The "set price," as you put it, for such medical services would simply be the cost for those services - the cost of medicines and supplies and wages and machines. No markup, no profit margins, no money in investors' pockets and no money to insurance companies. {Seriously, fuck the whole idea of insurance companies actually making a profit. That's just... it's just disgusting at this point.) Anyhoo. That's my take. I am open to realistic alternative solutions. Inelastic demand does not, unfortunately, repeal the laws of scarcity. So, absent the market, who do you want to give the power of life and death to? Scarce resources must be allocated, whether by the market or by some bureaucrat. There are no other options. The decisions about what resources are to be used to cure what ailments in what patients cannot be avoided by wishful thinking. What portion of our tax money should be spent prolonging a terminal patient's life, in general? What if it's one of your relatives? More or less? A Senator or his Wife? More or less than the average citizen? The Leader of the Free World? Is it somehow more legitimate to parcel out healthcare based on political pull than on voluntary exchange? Note who gets first-tier anything in a command economy, and who ends up with the dregs. Hell, look no farther than our own Congress. They're not too concerned about Obamacare because they get their own, gold-plated system. That's what you get from the ruling class. This fantasy that unlimited demands can be met by the magical dividing of fishes and loaves until everyone has all the healthcare they want is a fairytale, not reality.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2017 9:25:59 GMT -5
Europe. Australia. Canada.
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Post by Don on Aug 2, 2017 9:31:56 GMT -5
Europe. Australia. Canada. Cuba. North Korea. Venezuela.
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Post by robeiae on Aug 2, 2017 9:38:35 GMT -5
I wanna play!
Ummm...Chile. Yemen. Gabon.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2017 10:19:56 GMT -5
What I am saying (I think obviously) is that it isn't an impossible "fairy tale, not reality" if it is working fine in plenty of other places.
That doesn't mean there aren't places where it hasn't worked.
Are all happy marriages fairy tales because many end in divorce?
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Post by Christine on Aug 2, 2017 11:15:15 GMT -5
Apparently any day now, advanced democracies are going to turn into oppressive dictatorships.
Hell, I'm surprised the U.S. isn't already a communist country, what with decades of Social Security, Medicare, and public education forced on us all by the evil government.
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Post by robeiae on Aug 2, 2017 18:19:33 GMT -5
And here I thought we were about to become a banana republic, what with Trump and all.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2017 18:24:52 GMT -5
And here I thought we were about to become a banana republic, what with Trump and all. And so we are, but it won't be because of healthcare.
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Post by robeiae on Aug 3, 2017 9:15:00 GMT -5
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Post by robeiae on Aug 3, 2017 9:19:20 GMT -5
And so we are, but it won't be because of healthcare. It amuses me that we're teetering on the brink: about to become a socialist country or about to become a fascist dictatorship, depending on who is in power and who one asks. Regardless, imo we're pretty far away from either in actuality.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2017 9:58:32 GMT -5
I shall rashly proclaim this:
I think we're on the brink of a constitutional crisis that will determine whether we remain a republic or go in one of those two directions.
The free press, our courts, and Congress growing a spine are our best hope of keeping a republic.
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