My butt as well. There is no free market because we insist on trying to control it.


----------------------------------------------------

What really perturbs me about this whole healthcare reform thing is that this has all been done before. Many times. With healthcare and with virtually everything else. Every single time an issue is brought up, people turn to the government to fix it with new legislation, new regulation, new powers...etc. Every single time, the government does something remarkably inept by any measure. And every single time, business ends up capturing the regulators and using them to abuse us in a worse fashion than it had been before. How many times must we re-create this nightmare golem before we realize what we are doing?

I exaggerate, but not much. The healthcare system we have now is proof-positive of what happens when you mix business with government. You can reform healthcare all you want, but all you'll ever end up doing is re-forming it.

Some say nationalized healthcare is the solution. They point at Canada or England or whatever and say "Look! It can work!". Or Norway. Or some other country that is not this one and is in a completely different situation with a completely different government. Those arguments are pretty easily refutable, and often citizens of those nations say as much, but it's all beside the point. US citizens are generally in the US, and what the US has done with its forays into nationalized healthcare has not been pretty, no two ways about it. Medicare and Medicaid are fiscal disasters on a level second only to Social Security and the US government itself. And this is the entity people want to entrust healthcare to? As if by some miracle the same government that managed to get us into this position in the first place with limited involvement is going to get us out of it by becoming more involved? Is the whole country insane or is it just me?

If we nationalize healthcare, we're just going to get a healthcare system that is reminiscent of our nationalized school system, or our nationalized retirement plan, or our nationalized passenger service, which is to say it will be a complete disaster.

We desperately need truly free-market healthcare. It's the only thing we haven't tried and there is good reason to believe that it will serve us better than the current system, much as vital industries that have co-opted the government less and as such are not matters of national concern tend to do.

I don't promise it will be an easy transition. There will be snake-oil peddlers and extortionists and whatnot, and people will suffer for their profiteering, make no mistake. But is that really any different from what we have now? FDA extortionism aside, we still have an overabundance of drugs and medical procedures that have slipped through their collective regulatory fingers. Don't you people ever watch those incessant lawyer commercials? Ever wonder why there are so many? Of course not, you get to skip past them with your Tivo or whatever that private industry generously provided at a reasonable cost. But the fact remains that the garbage products and the lawsuits are still there. Call me crazy, but for what we spend on FDA "regulation", I'd rather take a little responsibility for myself and read product reviews provided by private companies rather than trusting the nanny-state to care for me.

And then there's the FDA's "successes". The FDA is often quick to point out that "We saved (x) lives today by approving (y) drug." Color me stupid, but doesn't that mean that you cost us (x) lives times eight for taking eight years to approve the drug? And we're supposed to fund you for this with our tax dollars? At gunpoint if need be? What idiot came up with this idea? Oh.... wait, it was us. Yes, us, the same idiots who are now advocating healthcare reform by using the same means that caused us to demand reform in the first place.

By contrast, the free market encourages us to be conscious consumers. Anyone remember any of the variously-named miracle weight-loss products that are advertised all the time or any of that other crap? We generally ignore them, but when we don't, we can buy conscious consumerism for the low price of $19.99 if we call now. Statements not evaluated by the FDA. Sorry, no COD's. Granted, people still fall for this crap, but at least they have the courtesy to limit the damage to themselves, and if they aren't complete idiots, they only do it a few times at best.

So, again, the healthcare system needs to be fixed. Creating a government healthcare plan does not fix the problem of high costs. The plan is only throwing more money at it.

Simply put, there is very little in justifying the enormous costs for pills and proceedures. Just reading Growlers experience is enough to know the costs are inflated beyond comprehension and left unchecked for years. A healthcare reform bill did not fix the broken overpriced healthcare system. It is only going to feed it more dollars.

Is there another way for me, the average citizen, to affect what i'm being charged by the medical establishment? Don't tell me to shop around for a better price because I am not a doctor and unless I want to train myself to become one i'm not going to be able to shop around effectively. Not in a situation where cheaper might mean ineffective or worse.

No it wouldn't be any different and that's why it won't work. Don't forget what we have now is unsustainable so you're just advocating replacing a broken system with another broken system.

For-profit health care has become unaffordable to growing numbers of people. Come up with a workable solution to that and you might get my support.

This in a nutshell is why private health care doesn't work and will never work. Private industry has never generously provided anything to anyone ever. They do it purely for profit and only profit. Generosity doesn't come into it. As long as they are driven by money they will always try to provide the least for the most. Basic marketplace law. You can't avoid it.

And you think this would change in an unregulated free market?

Caveat Emptor might work for TiVO players but if I screw up in my choice the worst that can happen is I don't get to watch my Gilligan's Island re-runs for awhile. If I make a mistake when it comes to health care it might cost me my life or the lives of my family. That's just not something I want to play around with.

I guess the bigger question is when did health care go wrong?

I'm old enough to remember seeing my GP, him spending time and cost very reasonable.

In the 80's when I first started working, the company I worked for had great affordable medical insurance as did 90% of contractors and paid the full cost. Over time it changed, employees paid some cost, got worse.

When that business closed down 5 years ago, employees were paying full cost for 60/40 coverage, I'm talking about $600 a month for family. For those working in the field by the hour, that was 30-40% of their pay. Now few offer it at all, if they do, you pay for most if not all of it.


Greed has to be at it's core no doubt....with lawyers.

Also, it seems the industry is more concerned with treating symptoms, not seeking cures or preventing disease. They say the upcoming obese generation of youth will cost more than the baby boomers.

That list is so full of hyperbole, I don't even know where to start.

One (and 2), what an insurance CEO makes is meaningless.

1 out of 4 Californians has no insurance? So what? A huge % of those are ILLEGALS. Another large % are young. Are 25% young or illegal in CA? Young people don't need insurance—if you are 18-40 or so, you can save money by simply paying out of pocket on the odd chance you need it, that or get a super cheap policy only for hospitals (trauma). Insurance is a bad bet for the young and healthy. Caveat—for single people, or couples without kids.

PROFITS HAVE INCREASED 56%!!!!!! OMG! From 1 - 2% to 1.56 - ~3%. 56% sounds HUGE, but health insurance is in fact a lousy business with low profit margins. If 2-3% profit is bad for health insurance, make sure that no other industry is allowed that outrageous (LOL) level of profit.

12.2 billion in profit! healthcare in the US costs ~1 TRILLION. That's... wait for it... 1.22% profit (since almost 50% os government, double that number, so 2.44%. That hyperbolic headline is about companies making under 3% profit. (clearly these bullet points can only really upset people too stupid to know how to do math).

Health insurance premiums are increasing in large part because of the government. The segment of the healthcare industry that is "cash only" of course sees either decreases in costs, or more value per dollar (LASIK, plastic surgery, etc—pure market healthcare, and you can get better lasik now than 10 years ago for the same money, or about the same as 10 years ago for less). Government sets arbitrary reimbursement, and private pays (insurance) have to cover the excess or the providers are screwed.

"Each year, tens of billions of dollars is spent on pharmaceutical marketing in the United States alone." Wow, they spend a few % on advertising. Of course they do, they have to make money before their drug—which takes many billions to get to market—is knocked off as a "generic." They are also the ones who get sued by the ambulance chasers, even though the FDA has already approved their drug.

#s 16 and 17 are funny. Maybe they should stop demanding a drug from their doc. The doc can't win. Most people get better with no treatment, but they'll get complaints if they don't throw drugs at everyone, so they treat empirically. Conservative care FTW.

18 is all about fear of ambulance chasers. Yeah lawyers?!

#19 says layers add 56 billion. That's a gross understatement. The actual payouts are small (the 56B$), it's "defensive medicine" that runs up costs (call that safely 10%—100 billion—possibly approaching 20% of total cost.

Hospitals overcharge by 1%! (doesn't look as nasty that way as "10 billion." Needs to be fixed, but not with hyperbole.

"It is not uncommon for insurance companies to get hospitals to knock their bills down by up to 95 percent, but if you are uninsured or you don't know how the system works then you are out of luck."

The government underpays. Private pays can negotiate contracts that are mutually beneficial. Ie: they reduce costs. Apparently this is bad.

There is no possible Constitutional argument for nationalizing healthcare. Any claim it is special is BS. People need food to live, too. Why not nationalize grocery stores and restaurants? What about housing?

Anyone in favor of nationalized health care in the US needs to ask how it will contain costs. Eliminating insurance would eliminate their outrageous 2.5% profit, there's that. Of course real insurance is grossly more efficient than government, so we lose whatever that is... of the 3 employees per doc at my wife's office that deal with "insurance" 2 of them do nothing but medicaid/medicare, with the 3d helping out sometimes (since private insurance is so easy—they get billed electronically, and pay literally the same day, the government returns claims constantly with no indication why (usually a check box that doesn't even matter is not checked—they return it, and don't say WHY (*******s)).

The vast majority of lifetime medical bills are in the last months of life. The only way to significantly reduce costs is to reduce end of life care. Period. Rationing, "death panels," call it what you like. "Flyover" states have fewer docs, and therefore are forced to practice "conservative" care. Average end of lfe costs in the middle of the US are grossly lower than in the urban areas for the same diagnosis (Duke did a study on it). So minus the excesses of the "blue" states, healthcare costs nationally per capita could be significantly lowered. Note that such urban areas also get paid more for the same care in less hip zip codes (you can get a large pay raise just by crossing into the more populous state of TX from NM, for example, because everything (private, too) is pegged to Medicaid/Medicare, and they pay more in those zip codes than here)

Hello,
now i hear the same argument again: "We need a free market, real competition, no control blahblahblah ! "

What do you think will happen with the prices if you do not control the pharmaceutical companies' greed by brute force by someone who has the power to do so ?
Anytime any industry like railroads, telecom, water, energy, health care was privatized, the prices immediately rose. There never was competition, and there never will be, in those branches.
Those basic services a state provides for its citizens does not belong in private hand, just like military defense !

The only market where those things work are with surplus luxury products like electronics made in China, Korea and Japan, when selling their stuff here. But do you know how much a worker in a chinese Apple iPhone factory earns ? 0,65 cent, per hour ! If you want this in the US, there will be competition alright.
But i have news for you: YOU will be working there, for 65 cents. The Company manager will still be in his exclusive club making money, but you won't be in it !

Who do you think will be able to pay for something simple like Aspirin in ten years from now if you let the companies do what they want ?

Did you ever hear about price agreements and partitioning the market between companies ? Cartels ? Ar$ehole managers not caring for anyone but themselves with an ethical conscience of a corpse maggot ?


Greetings,
Catfish


P.S. re Tater:
" ... Medical companies are not bad in itself, they have just adapted to locust-capitalism, and let students and doctors do the research, "generously" paying for the study including, say, 100 probands, and declare the result to be statistically significant - and if it does not fit they just let someone else do the same test study again.
They do not want you to become sick or harass you, they just do not care at all - or better, only about money. You will certainly never hear that, from them. ..."
Just in case you overread that. Therr were no real new medicaments or breakthroughs in the last two decades ! Pahramaceutical companies do not invest in research period. They bring new drugs or mediaments on the market, without those helping against anything, just as cash cows.

Ok I got this far before I quit. Thanks for the laugh.

http://mattjohnsontrading.com/wp-con...onMinister.jpg

"Health insurance is fine. Nothing to see here. There are no problems with the health insurance industry whatsoever!"

I should have added "single." My bad. Obviously with kids, it becomes a positive cost-benefit (or perhaps not, but people are going to go for added security with kids than without, even if the cost-benefit is still against buying insurance).

I edited for ya.

tater, in your points, some agreed, some not.

End of life care is where most of the money is spent. Course, I guess it's what you mean by end of life care, years of prolonging life or care such as Hospice, which is mostly paid out of medicare. Course, I'm sure Hospice is much cheaper than keeping someone in the hosptial to die.

My mother is home under Hospice, maybe a week, maybe 6 months, all her treatment is free, except if we step into areas of wanting other meds, etc.

My mother spent two weeks in the hospital before being sent home, total cost, $133,000 rounded off.

Normally I agree on just about everything you post tater but not on this one. Just my experience alone and before I was 40 years old:

Hernia
spontaneous pneumothorax THREE TIMES!!! I spend 7-10 days in the hospital depending on the severity of the hole in my lung. My second collapse on my left lung required a surgery of talc powder to make the lung stick to my chest cavity so it will never collapse again.

Anyway, each stay is usually 10-15k depending on how many good drugs I take.

All ages should have coverage.

It's a cost-benefit issue.

The leading cause of death and morbidity for the young is trauma.

Policies that only cover "major medical" are in fact quite reasonable. Such a cheap policy would have covered your situation. I pulled "40" out of a hat as that is the point where cancer starts to become a more likely issue, as does heart disease.

Again, there will always be anecdotal exceptions, but from a public policy standpoint, the entire point of forcing the young to buy insurance is that they DON'T USE HEALTHCARE. That's the entire point of the mandate (unconstitutional though it is). Make young people who don't get sick pay for full-ticket insurance. It's a subsidy of the old by the young.

The reality is that the older you get, the more healthcare you use.

Even kids don't need insurance (statistically). That said, we have insurance, regardless. We can afford it, and so we throw money away on it, even if the expectation value is bad (receipts of service vs costs). Someone less well off could bank the money they'd otherwise spend on insurance, and would likely come out way ahead (some will not, again, statistically).

In the real world, people make this choice. When they were claiming "46 million" without healthcare in the US, the number of people that wanted it, but could not afford it (excluding illegals) was in fact more like 6 million. More that 6 million didn't have insurance by choice. It's a good bet, but one anyone might wish they hadn't made on the rare chance they need serious care. That's why critical care insurance is a good deal at a few hundred bucks a year (high deductible, but it's only for really bad stuff that makes 1-2 grand look cheap).

Absolutely!

However, don't you think the young that carry a policy are paying for the elderly that are actively using the insurance for aliments? I liken it to the young paying SS now so the elderly that are drawing SS currently are actually getting the money.

Hello, August. I figured we'd be disagreeing upon this issue again. I promise not to be such a total ass about it this time.

That's the beauty of the free market. You don't have to be a doctor to know what you should be charged or if you're getting proper treatment, and that's exponentially true here on our own internets. You can look up patient reviews for just about any doctor in the nation; all you have to do is type in a name. Doctors are literally competing to gain your business, and the good ones are the ones who have been around for a while and have good credentials and patient reviews. Is that so difficult?

And yes, you have the power to influence a free-market system, just by doing what you do already, right here on this forum. You're concerned about the quality and availability of healthcare to those who need it, so you speak your mind, and people listen. Well, not so much here in GT, but in a free market where people listen to consumer concerns because they have an interest in listening to them, you could literally influence the purchasing decisions of thousands of others. Compare the amazing success of websites like Amazon.com to the almost total popular disillusionment with the federal government and everything it does and you'll see what I mean.

No, I'm advocating replacing a very broken permanent system with a less-broken flexible system that places choice in your hands. You're conservative. You're responsible. Obviously, you can make your own good decisions. Why would you hand that responsibility over to a government that has already proven to be woefully ineffective at administering healthcare? Your experience with it may have been good, but the national attitude is that the system is not working, and you should consider what your "good" experience has cost others.

I have no workable solution. I'm not some economic genius. I can't figure out how to get affordable healthcare to those who need it or provide total coverage in an effective way. That's a task for a supermind that this planet has never seen. All I can do is to advocate the removal of people who think themselves to be so from positions of power and place the power in your hands. I can't presume to know your situation or your needs, but private industry can give you almost every choice you can think of. A free-market healthcare system would be like a supermarket, nay, a system of competing supermarkets that offer every product available at reasonable cost.


Okay, perhaps "generously" wasn't the best word to use. I see the free market as a place where individuals "generously" contribute vast amounts of time and effort into their endeavors despite a huge failure rate as a kind of generosity, but nevermind that.

You are correct in your assumption that business pursues profit with a singular mindset. Everyone knows this. It's not news. What people often fail to realize is that this drive for profit can be easily controlled as compared to the reckless stampede that is the government. Don't want a product? Don't buy it. Maybe others agree with you and maybe they don't, but you still don't have to buy it. Producers will accommodate you, where they can. After all, they want your money. That's marketplace law.

Yes, sir. Once the responsibility for oneself has been transferred from the government to the people, people will have to take responsibility for themselves, which is exactly what conservatives want. Stronger society and moral fabric and all that.

This is easily the best point you've made. I cannot really argue with that. Wanting what's best for your family is an almost irreducible moral. Moreover, it is a key conservative value. But consider this: what future do your children's children have with a nationalized healthcare system? I can understand your immediate concern, but I have doubts about long-term viability. I am not a parent, nor have I any desire to be one, so I can't judge what you said. I cede this point, pending your decision, and I would like to ensure that you and everyone else always has the freedom to make it.

No, I don't agree with the whole Free market thing, here's why:

If you get very sick, and are taken to a hospital, on the verge of death lets say, or in pain whatever...you aren't going to be in the ambulance saying: "oh how are the services in the hospital?, are the doctors competent? are your prices competitive with similar hospitals?" No, you need care now. They have a captive audience at that point. Nobody gets a reminder in their inbox on their computer saying: "attention, your spleen will break when you fall of your bicycle Tuesday so you better look of hospitals and doctors". Later on, if you get diagnosed with a chronic disease sure, you can pick your specialists...but this dosen't account for drugs. If a company holds a patent for a drug you need to survive they can pretty much charge anything they want and you have to pay it or you're dead. So no, I don't think your healthcare follows the same rules as normal consumer products. When your life is on the line, or only one company has rights to the drug you need to live your choices are limited.

The sad thing is, if you don't have health insurance, they WILL discharge your ass early. Health care is not a benevolent thing. My Fiancee's sister got in a car wreck a couple weeks ago. Went to the hospital, found out she didn't have insurance, did the bare minimum and discharged her. Turns out she had a blood clot, it went to her lungs and then she couldn't breath for ****.

Goes to another hospital, same thing. Bare mimum, only now she has multiple smaller blood clots, and out the door she went and she still can't breath for crap. I garuntee you if she had health insurance, both of those hospitals would have done every thing they could, instead of sending a patient who could die if blood clot hit her brain, out the door on her ass. My fiancee has issues with this. I've accepted that this is how the world is, years ago. It's a cold hard place, and it's all about money. Your just another ass that walked through their doors that they have to deal with because it's what they're paid to do, they really don't give a rats ass any other way.

It's a lot more difficult than you're making it out to be. First off i'm no doctor so I have no idea if i'm being sold snake oil or not and I have also no idea if any of those reviews weren't really written by the doctor themselves. Heck I just looked up the 4 doctors (2 surgeons, 1 Cardiologist and 1 GP) that i've had dealings with since my heart attack. Just one (1) of them had a review, positive or negative, that I could find and it was more about his bedside manner than his skill at diagnosing an illness.

So much for the reliability of the internets. Maybe it will improve but for now it is not reliable.

Sorry man as I said I just can't see any reliability in that. The internet is 99% crap and will continue to be so as long as it is anonymous. What is to stop an ex wife or some other disgruntled party from flooding the internet with fake negative reviews?

It seems to me that you are advocating replacing a very broken (we agree on that at least) system with a no holds barred middleman feeding frenzy that will prey on our societies aged and infirm.

Since we have a private health care system in this country what exactly the government woefully ineffective at? Administering insurance? No, I want national health care, not national health care insurance. There is a big difference between the two. Half measures like what we have now are ripe for abuse and corruption.

My experience is what it is. Personally witnessed over a long period of time. That should not be compared to some ill-defined national "attitude" which I have no idea what it might be based on.

And exactly what has my experience "cost others"? I would say the Army medical system has been worth every penny that has been spent on it since the Civil War. It saved my life twice.

You need a economic super mind to figure it out because you have made it all about money and profit! I prefer the focus to be instead on the health of the patient without moneys corrupting influence.

Cheap can mean two things UL. Inexpensive or low quality with a million shades and combinations of gray in between . Few people, including me, are going to be qualified to distinguish between the two before hand when it comes to such a complex subject as modern medicine. It's all about consequences.

Sounds great until you apply that to an area as complex and important as a persons health care decisions. I know, again from experience, that you can't pick your heart surgeon in advance. Sick people don't have time to shop around.

Sorry but I disagree with the extremeness of your position. There are some things that the government should be responsible for. It's why it exists. Defense, police, highway planning, code enforcement, street sweeping etc. In my opinion basic health care fits in well with the governments mission because it is for everyones benefit and it should not be about profit.

Now please note that while I am for a national health care system, I have no problem with also allowing private medical practices. If you have the money (or the insurance) you should be allowed to get your own doctor. In fact there are some things that national health care should not do like sex changes or boob jobs or other elective procedures that are not directly related to a citizens basic health.

I think the issue is much deeper for those with chronic illness or disease.
I saw 18 different Doctors, including 4 neuro's before I was dx. You know what they all said before, stress...Sure they ran a few test, but they all ignored my symptoms. This is common with those with nerve diseases.

Mayo figured it out in one day 4 years later, by then the possible fix was too late and I'm stuck with it.

Back home Neuro's stink. Here in NC you're lucky to see one every 9 months. I've tried to switch from mine twice in office, refused. I do have another appt with one in 4 months elsewhere.

It's very difficult for those without insurance to get specialist care. Now with Baptist Wake Forest refusing medicare, thousands will run to Greensboro to Cone...Cone says they wont be able to deal with it .

It's clear where were going, you don't have insurance and get seriously ill, good luck with your funeral.

" ... Sorry but I disagree with the extremeness of your position. There are some things that the government should be responsible for. It's why it exists. Defense, police, highway planning, code enforcement, street sweeping etc. In my opinion basic health care fits in well with the governments mission because it is for everyones benefit and it should not be about profit. ..."

And this is exactly what it's all about. What do you think a government is for ? If you shift all this to private companies, you are living in an anarchy.
But then you could elect your industrial bosses directly, and thus don't need to pay and endure those politicians and lobbyists .. :hmmm:
Ok, not a bad idea.



Maybe another explanation why we had a common sense system, for medical care (i is going haywires, i know - as soon as you allow privately-owned health insurance the system is being destroyed) for obvious reasons:

You pay a monthly fee to a private insurance, and it is less than a percentage of your loan would be when paying to a common health system alright. So if you are 20 years old, you pay virtually nothing in a private health insurance. If you have to use the system however, your monthly fee will rise along with paying for every treatment and drugs additionally, and it will soon be more than the relatively small percentage of your loan you would pay for, to a common health system.
If you try to enter a private insurance at an age of 50 to 60 private insurance companies might (not necessarily, you are not that cash cow anymore) let you, but your fees will be horrenduous, due to the risk of insuring someone who is that old and may have a major costly breakdown anytime.

The common health "governmental" system is a generation treaty, and one you build up yourself. You pay when you are young and don't need it, to have spared enough at an age you will need it. At higher age you can probably not work anymore, you have probably lost some or all of your money due to one of those private banks having crashed, and what do you do now ?
It is all about a generation treaty young-old, and of couse in heaping money at a time you are still able to.
If you are paying a private institution, how is that better than a common one ?

At least this, the military and other basic supplies do not belong in private hands, but in some that are independent, and think a bit more ahead than the next cheque and immediate wealth.

Greetings,
Catfish

This train is so out of control its coming off the rails!

Example A. A company used to sell shots at $11 a shot for women expecting that helped them avoid pre mature labor. The shot was required weekly and was effective. A pharmaceutical company bought the rights to the medicine and promptly jacked the price up to $1,100 per shot!!!! Insurance pays it because its required. PURE AND SIMPLE GREED!!!!!!

Example B. Gene patenting. A woman was told she was at risk for breast cancer. Blood work would verify if she had a gene that increased the risk exponentially. She used to have several options but now one lab patented her gene and all competition ceased to exsist. What was once $300.00 is now $1,300.00. Major research firms searching for a cure for cancer got cease and desist orders from the pharmaceutical company who own the gene.

Greed greed greed. YOu cant have a free market when these company's corner the market and own all rights to any drug, cure, prevention etc.

Your search-fu is weak, old man.:DL

Teasing aside, I think you're making it more difficult than it actually is. There are millions of doctors and specialists in this country, at least some of them are good. Maybe they aren't all on the internet and maybe you don't like using the internet to find them, but the internet isn't the only way to find good doctors. You have friends and co-workers and acquaintances you could talk to. You just have to try.

Granted, though I've had many major surgeries due to injuries, I've never had a heart attack or been in some other time-critical life-threatening state, so I can understand your concern about getting a good doctor in that regard. I can't guarantee that the free market will provide the right ones in such an emergency. What I can guarantee is that the free market will provide an overabundance of choice, and will attract a higher proportion of good doctors. Even our very heavily-regulated and bass-ackwards healthcare industry has made this country the premiere place for the world's best practitioners, simply by virtue of being less-controlled than the enlightened healthcare systems of other first-world nations.

The same thing that stops disgruntled trolls from flooding Subsim. People. And the admins who oversee consumer-review websites actually get paid to spot and eliminate fake reviews. Unless said disgruntled ex-wife is some kind of criminal mastermind with a an enviable command of software and the ability to mask her IP, she's not going to flood anybody's site with anything.


No, that's not what I'm advocating, but I can see how you'd get that impression, especially given your personal stake in this issue.

Everyone knows that business is evil and cares only about profits, we've already discussed that. It's not exactly true, but everyone knows it. Fortunately, enough of it is true that we can turn it to our advantage. I do want a feeding frenzy and I do want preying, but not upon the elderly and not by middlemen. I want a free-market environment for healthcare that will ensure an even greater influx of doctors, facilities, and consumables than we already have. With so many, and without the state to protect them, they will have to compete and will tear each other to pieces, shredding prices in the process. Tactical thinker is tactical.

Middlemen? What middlemen? Fiercely competing industries have no time or resources to spare for middlemen, save where they actually make things more efficient. Most of the middlemen we hate are only there because the government put them there. "Must be a licensed dealer, provider, insurer..." whatever. As if any of that licensure BS has kept us from getting ripped off.

The government is woefully ineffective at just about everything it does. There's enough evidence of its handiwork in the fact that we're even having this discussion to prove that. If that doesn't convince you, you could always look at the percentage of the wealth of the world's wealthiest nation the government spends on administering and controlling healthcare. Not to mention most of the other things it does.

But I agree, half-measures are the problem. What I don't understand is why you would think that a nationalized healthcare system would be more effective than a free-market system. Look at that the government has done with everything it nationalized so far. Public Education? Ruined. Public utilities? Largely abandoned in favor of deregulation, especially in the telecom industry. Public transportation? Where not abandoned, its a huge money sink. Public Broadcasting? Exists do to the generous contributions of viewers like you, sometimes whether you want to contribute or not, and also sucks and nobody watches it. Public welfare? We threw that disaster out the window over a decade ago. Public retirement? Social Security, 'nuff said. The government, even at the local level, can't even seem to get public toilets right.

Why would you think that the same government that created all these nationalized disasters would in any way be capable of providing adequate nationalized healthcare?


My experience is what it is. Personally witnessed over a long period of time. That should not be compared to some ill-defined national "attitude" which I have no idea what it might be based on.

Agreed. I've seen Navy Corpsmen save plenty of lives, and even make a few deaths more comfortable. They're great. But the nation is not the armed services. You can't count on that kind of dedication and motivation in a nationalized healthcare system any more than you can count on, well, the rest of the government.

Easy for a person who understands duty to say. Not so much for the vast majority of people who do not.

I cede this point and I have no solution. But there has to be a better alternative than nationalized healthcare. However, my faith in the free market remains undiminished. This is a serious concern and therefore it is a demand, waiting for someone to fill it. I imagine that some provider would crop up in short order to provide on-call medical care for emergencies. They kind of already do that, though Life-Alert has lame commercials and private ambulance services are just as prohibitively expensive as the rest of this half-measure healthcare system we have. Beyond saying that we should flood the market with these for-profit services to ensure a cheap and plentiful supply, I have no solution.

Extremeness? With all respect, my extremeness is no more prevalent then your own advocacy for nationalized healthcare. I don't advocate the abolition of government, only the adoption of a proper and very constitutionally-limited government. There are roles government needs to play, I agree, though I think it should be limited to enforcement and not proactive or preventative measures, which they so regularly SNAFU. I would even consider the adoption of some form of government healthcare for the less-fortunate, once we get our house in order. But now is not the time, and this government is not the one to do it.


So you're giving the medical equivalent of private-school education? Lovely. I'm sure I'll be able to afford it once "free" nationalized health care has utterly destroyed the supply of providers. I don't see that as being acceptable or a compromise.

Did I say that I was against nationalized healthcare? I reverse my position. I would love nationalized breast-enhancements. Not because I want them, but for the good of the nation. And children. Can't forget children. They need boobs, right? It's for our future.

Dumb joke, no? Not so much when you consider that arguments that hold less water, or milk in this case, can easily be developed into a tool for politicians to use. If you try to make a limited national health-care system, it will be perverted into something you didn't intend, just like all the other nationalized things.