Just one average Joe's opinion on why the markets can't cure helathcare

Why would a free-market advocate fear competition?

Even in market economies, the government (sate, local, national) is deeply involved in economic activity.

Some businesses are mainly undertaken by government, for instance education, defense and policing come to mind.

Others are undertaken in a framework in which many ordinary commercial decisions, such as those that concern pricing, investment and product design, are wholly or largely fixed by a government regulatory body.

The normal rationale for such intervention is the existence of market failure, which means either that a competitive industry structure is not possible or, if it is possible, is likely to have an outcome which is inefficient or undesirable.

The existence of inevitable market power is one such kind of market failure, as with electricity or water distribution, where a proliferation of suppliers is hopelessly uneconomic.

Markets fail through externalities, as with environmental or health and safety issues, where actions have consequences that do not immediately fall on those who engage in them. An increasingly common source of market failure is information asymmetry: the seller knows more than the buyer.

Typically, the main regulated industries are ones in which several of these market failures arise. These include natural gas, electricity and water utilities, telecommunications and media industries, transportation, professional and financial services, pharmaceuticals.

All of these have been regulated in most countries for a century or more.

Thee need for wide-ranging supervision of the management and operations of the businesses is self-evident. Airline regulation is clearly needed to secure the safety of passengers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulated_market
 
The current state of affairs amounts to a monopoly in many cases.

Costs have not been successfully contained by the private sector.

"In the past 13 years, more than 400 corporate mergers have involved health insurers, and a small number of companies now dominate local markets but haven’t delivered on promises of increased efficiency. According to the American Medical Association, 94 percent of insurance markets in the United States are now highly concentrated, and insurers are thriving in the anti-competitive marketplace, raking in enormous profits and paying out huge CEO salaries. Profits at 10 of the country’s largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007. In 2007 alone, the chief executive officers at these companies collected combined total compensation of $118.6 million—an average of $11.9 million each. That is 468 times more than the $25,434 an average American worker made that year. Moreover, the health insurance industry invests more in buying back its own stock and rewarding its shareholders than in improving system operations, reducing premiums, or in developing ways to pay doctors and hospitals fairly."

http://healthcareforamericanow.org/...ivate_insurers_consolidate_and_control_prices
 
DNC said:
The current state of affairs amounts to a monopoly in many cases.

Costs have not been successfully contained by the private sector.

"In the past 13 years, more than 400 corporate mergers have involved health insurers, and a small number of companies now dominate local markets but haven’t delivered on promises of increased efficiency. According to the American Medical Association, 94 percent of insurance markets in the United States are now highly concentrated, and insurers are thriving in the anti-competitive marketplace, raking in enormous profits and paying out huge CEO salaries. Profits at 10 of the country’s largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007. In 2007 alone, the chief executive officers at these companies collected combined total compensation of $118.6 million—an average of $11.9 million each. That is 468 times more than the $25,434 an average American worker made that year. Moreover, the health insurance industry invests more in buying back its own stock and rewarding its shareholders than in improving system operations, reducing premiums, or in developing ways to pay doctors and hospitals fairly."

http://healthcareforamericanow.org/...ivate_insurers_consolidate_and_control_prices
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so block mergers....don't nationalize the industry....that's the ultimate merger...
 
The President has not proposed "nationalizing" the health care industry, has he?
 
Cypress said:
I agree with these americans.



j/k. The crux of the problem is that you have tens of millions of rightwing americans, who have been trained like monkeys, to believe the zealotry and propoganda of the free market myth. A myth propogated, in the modern era, beginning with Ayn Rand, William F. Buckely, and culiminating with the election of useful dunces like Ronald Raygun and George Dumbya Bush. I have to tip my hat to the handful of billionaire plutocrats who pulled off this propoganda coup. Its pretty astonshing when you think about the fact that a few thousand millionaires and corporate overlords were able to fool tens of millions of americans with bright, shiny things. The extreme left, or true socialists never had this kind of propoganda machine.

The "free market" is good at manufacturing, marketing and selling consumer goods and services. Period.

Virtually anything else, which involves the public commons or the public welfare, should largely be divorced from the profit motive. Healthcare is one of those public commons. Or, at least healthcare delivery. Obviously, the free market is good at developing drugs for consumers on the back of publically funded core scientific research. But, why the eff we need to largely rely on for-profit, private insurance monopolies to act as middle men to pay doctor bills is ridiculous. If there's one God damned thing the government is really good at, it's paying bills. George Bush and John Boner have never expressed any concern, that I know of, for government financing and paying for their publically funded health insurance plans.
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hey moron, Bush is no longer president. Move on, you idiot.

And this just fucking cracks me up.

The extreme left, or true socialists never had this kind of propoganda machine

LOL (face palm)
 
The existence of the public option itself will eventually lead to defacto nationalization, as the rules are inevitably slanted in it's favor.
 
Searched all 1018 pages.

The term "nationalize" doesn't appear.

Nor does "nationalization".
 
PostmodernProphet said:
for example...


http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-21820897.html

every state has the same thing....
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When duplication results in inefficient operation and thus reduced profits, the result is higher prices to patients not, as free-marketeers would have us believe, greater competition and lower prices. The GOP and the profiteers seem to be arguing for more localized(state?) administration, apparently you, as do I, favor a more efficient single payer national plan to avoid duplication of regulation and resulting in greater efficiency.
Not even the most anti-healthcare plan advocate can deny ours is the most expensive, inefficient health system in the civilized world. The system has buried our industrial base and bankrupted millions of Americans. Profit and free markets in healthcare don't work just as they didn't work before the controlling of other free-wheeling monopolies run by Robber Barons. In this instance, the Robber Barons are the insurance companies aided by for-profit pharma companies and healthcare facilities flooding huge bribe(blood) money to legislators.
 
belme1201 said:
When duplication results in inefficient operation and thus reduced profits, the result is higher prices to patients not, as free-marketeers would have us believe, greater competition and lower prices. The GOP and the profiteers seem to be arguing for more localized(state?) administration, apparently you, as do I, favor a more efficient single payer national plan to avoid duplication of regulation and resulting in greater efficiency.
Not even the most anti-healthcare plan advocate can deny ours is the most expensive, inefficient health system in the civilized world. The system has buried our industrial base and bankrupted millions of Americans. Profit and free markets in healthcare don't work just as they didn't work before the controlling of other free-wheeling monopolies run by Robber Barons. In this instance, the Robber Barons are the insurance companies aided by for-profit pharma companies and healthcare facilities flooding huge bribe(blood) money to legislators.
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so we turn everything over to the most efficient robber baron?.....the government?.....
 
Congress is at work and health reform is moving forward. Congress needs to hear from us to make sure any health legislation includes:

Coverage we can afford;
Comprehensive benefits we can count on;
Choice of a private plan or a national public health insurance plan ready on day one; and
Equal access to quality care.
Members of Congress in both the House and the Senate are working to champion these goals.

Call today to make sure every Member of Congress stands with us!


http://www.healthcareforamericanow.org/
 
tinfoil said:
hey moron, Bush is no longer president. Move on, you idiot.

And this just fucking cracks me up.

The extreme left, or true socialists never had this kind of propoganda machine

LOL (face palm)
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Why is it the RW reactionaries always want us to remember that all things good that have come since the 80s are a result of R. Reagan, yet in six months we are expected to forget the pain of bush?
 
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AssHatZombie said:
But Obamas's "government option" does not stimulate legitimate competition. The government plan will always win because of it's state support, and ability to strongarm. This is not real "free market" competition.
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Curious to what you believe the free market solution is. Do you agree that there is a problem?
 
Apparently the obstructionists believe that people who don't have health care coverage don't really want it.
 
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