Don't think Eisenhower meant his cross of iron quite as literally as you.
Odd how the healthcare industry hasn't done that in the least.
Right right government is the ultimate source of all human woes.
Ah yes the old ad hominem. Stay classy Gas.
Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats
- Thread starter GasBandit
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Dave
Staff member
It’s like these people just don’t understand they can’t mess around with this.
figmentPez
Staff member
Most of them don't seem to have ever faced any significant consequences in their life, for anything before. They've committed crime after crime, and seen payoff after payoff. The system is usually rigged in their favor.
GasBandit
Staff member
Because they're not competing, they're colluding. The whole problem is that there's not enough competition in the market, there's no pushback due to that provider-insurer collusion, and thus shady "chargemaster" practices are eliminating market forces instead of being subject to them.
At best, it's a necessary evil of last resort. It's certainly never a good idea to make it the go-to solution to every problem.
Consider it a just payment for the pompous assertion that because you "remain unconvinced," that means you're right and I'm wrong, practically an Argument from Incredulity fallacy.
I've heard it more accurately described as "Broward County is the Florida of Florida." I would include Palm Beach in that as well. It's not surprising that the two counties that had the biggest problem in 2000 are the same ones causing the biggest problems this year.
Sorry everybody for making the funny picture thread into an argument thread. I've become everything I've hated.
But no I think that the healthcare industry is too far gone and too complicated to just hurl open the doors and scream "Let the invisible hand of the market heal the sick" and I'm a pathetic government boot licking stooge. Everything I've worked for in my life my degrees, my house and the life I've created for myself just means I've abdicated all responsibility to my masters. All I've done to help others through volunteering, all the animals I've rescued, all the family on medicaid that I've seen mistreated by the healthcare system. None of that has any fucking worth to you because I don't agree that market forces are a flawless panacea for industry where 5% of people in a given year would be responsible for 50% of the costs I'm not a libertarian superman like yourself.
You don't fucking know me.
Surprisingly that was exactly my point. But I guess that just means I don't know anything about capitalism.
Yeah I want them to be the first solution in every problem because I want them to restore some sanity into a marketplace that is straight up fucked.
Oh it's a fallacy to remain unconvinced after a unconvincing argument? It's pompous to hear that somebody got a good deal on an elective outpatient procedure and now they know the healthcare industry better than somebody who worked in it for years after college?
But no I think that the healthcare industry is too far gone and too complicated to just hurl open the doors and scream "Let the invisible hand of the market heal the sick" and I'm a pathetic government boot licking stooge. Everything I've worked for in my life my degrees, my house and the life I've created for myself just means I've abdicated all responsibility to my masters. All I've done to help others through volunteering, all the animals I've rescued, all the family on medicaid that I've seen mistreated by the healthcare system. None of that has any fucking worth to you because I don't agree that market forces are a flawless panacea for industry where 5% of people in a given year would be responsible for 50% of the costs I'm not a libertarian superman like yourself.
You don't fucking know me.
I guess I'd just say "nobody should be told that they will be left to die from a treatable disease/condition because they don't have enough money" and then work backwards from there. In all the "prices will lower if we let the free market do X" plans, it doesn't make it 0. Which means there is a point where people with a treatable disease/condition will be left to die because they don't have enough money.
Gas still believes the Free Market is a magic thing that will automatically help the poorest and the richest, and will provide all that is necessary. Markets will self-control to a healthy, competitive balance where the many, small actors will all benefit from the big actors continuing to compete just for fun and giggles.
I'm in favor of capitalism - it's the least bad system we've tried so far - but ad we've seen hundreds of times before, all markets, when left completely free, tend to monopolies or oligopolies. Once one or a few companies become big enough, they control the market and can lobby for ever more power and it becomes ever more difficult for competitors to enter the market.
Of course, in some sectors, free competition, even though it might improve service and decrease price, might not be worth it to the customer. Shopping around may be easier than ever because if the internet, it's not always possible or desirable.
Not only that, in some instances competition can result in worse service. The postal service is an example: having one company make daily rounds may be possible, having 10 companies make daily rounds is not supportable in most areas, which results in things like Fedex only servicing some areas twice a week, and USPS once a week, etc.
Like myself, Gas tries to reconcile a desire for freedom of enterprise and competition with a desire not to end up in a Far West crapsack cyberpunk future run by the megacorps.
Unlike me, he wants to start with compete freedom for everyone everywhere until it's proven it doesn't work, after which the government has to "keep the market competitive" by breaking up monopolies. I'd rather prefer not ending up in that situation because that's too late.
I'm in favor of capitalism - it's the least bad system we've tried so far - but ad we've seen hundreds of times before, all markets, when left completely free, tend to monopolies or oligopolies. Once one or a few companies become big enough, they control the market and can lobby for ever more power and it becomes ever more difficult for competitors to enter the market.
Of course, in some sectors, free competition, even though it might improve service and decrease price, might not be worth it to the customer. Shopping around may be easier than ever because if the internet, it's not always possible or desirable.
Not only that, in some instances competition can result in worse service. The postal service is an example: having one company make daily rounds may be possible, having 10 companies make daily rounds is not supportable in most areas, which results in things like Fedex only servicing some areas twice a week, and USPS once a week, etc.
Like myself, Gas tries to reconcile a desire for freedom of enterprise and competition with a desire not to end up in a Far West crapsack cyberpunk future run by the megacorps.
Unlike me, he wants to start with compete freedom for everyone everywhere until it's proven it doesn't work, after which the government has to "keep the market competitive" by breaking up monopolies. I'd rather prefer not ending up in that situation because that's too late.
FTFY. I know you and I won't agree on this because I'm pretty staunch left and you're.. whatever libertarians are ever since the right became crazy town, but I view the problems we're having as the natural outcome of late stage capitalism rather than the subversion.
Though, to be fair, Gas is right in the sense that completely regulating every market and pouring effecting in concrete, giving all power to unions and lobby's, doesn't exactly solve everything, either. In many cases, it leads to bad service, laziness, entitlement, exaggerated prices, and a compete dearth of innovation and modernization. Keeping the right balance - which can also differ from sector to sector, from region to region, and through time, is a difficult and never-ending exercise n
Oh, I don't claim to know a solution, I just think we're fucked.
Except Gas is the only person who disagrees with that. I've never said I want the Government to control all things or that every regulation is a good thing no matter what. Nor have I seen anybody else arguing to give the Government absolute control over every single thing.
So while you're being fair to Gas you're being unfair to everybody who disagrees with him.
*singing* (er, sort of)
Give me absolute controlOver every living soul
And lie beside me, baby
That's an order
Give me crack and anal sexTake the only tree that's left
And stuff it up the hole
In your culture
Give me back the berlin wall
Give me stalin and st paul
I've seen the future, brother
It is murder
-Leonard "Big Government" Cohen
I’m actually appreciating the civil discourse. The only complaints I ever have about these tangent discussions relate to the amount of screen real estate they occupy.
—Patrick
GasBandit
Staff member
So, you agree that what's happening here in the health industry isn't capitalism, and you're using that as an argument against capitalism in the health industry.
The car's engine isn't running right, so your solution is to disconnect the engine and just push the car for the rest of your life. Hope you like substandard care and wait times.
#YouDidn'tEarnThat
Nothing makes it 0. TANSTAAFL. Not even in "socialist utopias." Somebody pays, and someone controls. If you think washington is dangerous to the common man now, wait til they're deciding who gets health care and who doesn't.
Competition works to make things affordable, though, in the most efficient manner possible, whenever it's forced. That's the real kicker here.
I am guessing you just skimmed over the posts instead of actually reading them, because I have been actually advocating for some very un-libertarian government involvement of the trust-busting flavor. I didn't say markets will self-control to a healthy, competitive balance, I said the government must act to ensure the marketplace remains competitive. Taking our four-payer plan to a single-payer plan is the wrong direction - we need more competition, not eliminate it in favor of central (goverment) control. That way lies bread lines.
It was possible BEFORE the internet, even.
Oh buddy did you pick the wrong example. The Post-office is a government-enforced monopoly. It is literally illegal to compete with the post office. That monopoly is what makes the USPS so awful - because it doesn't have to be good when it's the only one. I've told stories previously about people who tried to provide cheaper, faster alternative services and the government shut them down.
You're right, I definitely don't agree.
GasBandit
Staff member
But that's literally the solution du jour for health care, isn't it? Single payer, government controlled NHS-style health care?
figmentPez
Staff member
The nightmare scenario for a purely socialistic system is it failing.
The nightmare scenario for purely capitalistic system is it succeeding.*
The reason why capitalistic systems tend to work so much better than socialistic systems is because we've started building failure points into the system, averting the nightmare scenario by disrupting businesses from doing what businesses inevitably do.
* If a government is stepping in to provide regulation, it's not a purely capitalistic system.
The nightmare scenario for purely capitalistic system is it succeeding.*
The reason why capitalistic systems tend to work so much better than socialistic systems is because we've started building failure points into the system, averting the nightmare scenario by disrupting businesses from doing what businesses inevitably do.
* If a government is stepping in to provide regulation, it's not a purely capitalistic system.
GasBandit
Staff member
That's like arguing that a furnace "succeeds" at heating your home by burning it down. Capitalism is an engine, it has to be harnessed, maintained, and monitored, yes. But it's silly to say "look, when you free the engine by pushing the accelerator to the floor for an hour straight, it melts a cylinder, obviously internal combustion engines are bad and we should use palanquins. And if you talk about using the engine in any other way other than red-lining it constantly, it's not really an engine."
figmentPez
Staff member
Replace "furnace" with "fire" and you might have a point. What you routinely propose as "capitalism" has so many more systems in it beyond capitalism that it shouldn't be called that, any more than the systems you rail against should be called "socialism". And that's my problem with how you present your "capitalistic" libertarian views. You take your hypothetical ideal furnace and call it fire, while comparing it to a cave and pretending that cave is what everyone is talking about when they say a modern house.
You know damn well that the system you propose has far more elements required than just getting businesses to compete, just like a furnace is far more than just burning fuel. Yet you still talk about competing systems as if people advocating them are saying we should live in caves. "Fire vs Cave! Obviously fire is better because look at this furnace!"
It's actually an example of a failed marketplace which is still capitalism.
I'm getting substandard care and wait times.
And my solution is put in a new engine cause the old one is incredibly expensive to maintain and run. Which to me seems like a better plan than hoping an invisible hand causes the engine to work for reasons I don't understand and can't explain and then blaming the fact that it is broken on the government.
I think in terms of the metaphor getting out and pushing would be me becoming the doctors,hospitals and other companies that make up the healthcare industry. Which seems like it just isn't feasible.
GasBandit
Staff member
More like saying it's better to have a selection of furnaces to choose from, rather than trusting the government to be the sole entity that decides who gets furnaces, what furnace will be used, and how often it will be maintained.
And you'd rather get rid of markets than fix the marketplace?
The only people using the phrase "invisible hand" are you guys. If you don't understand basic concepts like competition causing lower prices and higher quality of service to consumers, maybe you ought to see about revisiting that degree you mentioned. Socialism isn't an engine, it's more like a drive train - it needs an engine to push it because it doesn't generate power, it uses it - and not particularly well. A government-imposed monopoly has demonstrably been a terrible thing, examples for which from living memory I've already given. Furthermore, it takes a dangerous amount of control out of the hands of individuals and puts it in the hands of government - a government that grows more out of touch and disinterested in the suffering of its citizenry-cum-subjects with every passing day. You think Trump is bad now? Wait until he's got control of all medical care, and can send through executive orders on who gets what.
GasBandit
Staff member
They definitely should be, I agree. I ascribe the general tendency that they are not to also being part of that thing where people don't care because "insurance will take care of it, so I don't care what it costs."
If you could explain the step between current fucked up system and competitive market place I might consider it. But so far you've only insisted that market forces are the only way to do it while ignoring all the complications that would entail.
Do you really not know the term invisible hand of the market? I thought you at least had to know who Adam Smith is to call yourself a Libertarian.
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Have literally never heard anybody but you use that phrase. Especially since insurance never covers all of the costs.
figmentPez
Staff member
That doesn't stop airfare, automobiles, internet, hotels, banks, ticket vendors, real estate, etc. etc. etc. from having hidden fees. I'm really not seeing how competition forces businesses to be up front about costs.
Of course somebody pays. All universal healthcare plans must be coupled with progressive tax increases so the people paying are those that can afford it.