[detbuch]

Originally Posted by wdmso

The health care system has been massively distorted by government regulations. At this point, the regulations have squeezed out competition. They have limited or denied the ability of individuals to freely trade with providers and insurers. They have made the costs for medical devices outrageously expensive. They have made, in general, health care so expensive that individuals cannot afford it. they have driven the system incrementally, and steadily, toward single payer government health care.





BIG Bad Goverment isn't the Problem Single payer is coming and heath insurance company's will be a memory they have already dug there own Grave with unsustainable rate hikes

A free market dictum is "charge what the market will bear." Another way of saying that is to charge what a customer or given set of customers are willing to pay. Another version is to give equal value for value. Ignoring the dictum will eventually lead to businesses extinguishing themselves.

What you seem to be saying is that all health insurance companies are too stupid to do what works. That their greed blinds all of them to stupidly commit market suicide. One would think that some enterprising and bright health insurance business which understood the need to follow the dictum would come along and charge what you consider sustainable prices.

Of course, that would more likely occur in a free market.

A government controlled and regulated market might not be free enough, due to regulations, to charge what is both affordable and profitable. And a government controlled market would lead to cronyism, the cooperation of big businesses supporting regulations if they eliminated competition creating larger coerced profits for themselves. It is most likely that all the insurance companies are not too stupid and too greedy to charge what you consider sustainable prices, rather it is more than probable that government mandates cost them too much to do so. And that a few crony companies benefitted from the mandates.

One way to sustain the insurance companies, is for the government to "subsidize" (pay for) the price of insurance for those who can't afford it, and even to subsidize the big crony insurance companies for the losses due to government control and regulation. This all was done in Obamcare.

At what point does it become unsustainable for government to subsidize buyers for all the regulatory costs it imposes on business? In a for profit business sense, or even in a to merely break even sense, that point has already been reached. Health insurance companies have been forced by mandates to price themselves out of business if they're not subsidized, and more buyers of insurance can't afford to pay for it unless they are subsidized. And the national debt is unsustainable.

Now, that is clearly, definitely, obviously, not a free market situation. What should also be obvious to a reasonable person, is that insurance companies are not all so stupid that "they have already dug there own Grave with unsustainable rate hikes" as you put it. That is not a reasonable assumption. Perhaps a Progressive talking point assumption, but not a reasonable one. What is a reasonable assumption is that they have been regulated to the point of unsustainability. That it is coercion, not stupidity, that has dug their grave.

And it is no coincidence that, as you say, single payer is coming. It was already admitted by some Dems that single government payer is what they wanted all along. Government health care has been a Progressive dream and goal since the FDR era. It has been admitted that Obamacare is just another step toward that. It is not only reasonable, but obvious, that the government regulations on health insurance companies imposed by the ACA were meant to dig that grave for them. For them to be, as you say, "a memory."


health care will still happen hospitals doctors and nurses will still work

Of course all that will happen. It happens even in some of the poorest most dictatorial godforsaken countries. It is one of the items that those governments will at least minimally provide or risk revolution. And it will be provided in most, or all, of single payer systems at a level below what most of the population would get in a free market.

medications will still be made the share holders will be the entire US not just stock holders look for a profit

Sure, medications will still be made. But innovation will be levelled to a status quo. It takes a lot of motivation to strive for new and better stuff. The profit motive has been the strongest and most sustainable motivator in human history. We don't live in a fictional Star Trek world where most go where no man has gone before just for the sake of mankind. For most, it takes more than feeling good about yourself to go along for the ride. For most, it is easier to repeat than to innovate. But if we can get a lot more than we already have, a lot more are willing to take the trip.

And your notion that the entire US, the entire population will be the shareholder in single payer government run and paid healthcare is ridiculous. Shareholders invest for profit. Explain how the taxpayers all paying for the entire health care system creates a profit for them.

And how do they all profit equally? If the "profit" is healthcare and if all get the same healthcare but some pay more than others and some pay nothing, do all profit equally? Isn't the only way all could profit equally is if all had identical economic conditions--the same economic worth--same pay, etc. etc. Is that an attractive economic and social model for you?

Isn't investing a means to get more than you paid for the investment. Otherwise, just keep the money rather than investing it. Go ahead, build a car and pay the entire cost of building it, then buy the car from yourself for more than you paid to make it. Where, exactly, is the profit in that. Oh, you say no, no . . . the entire population will pay some groups of people to build cars for everybody. And then the cars, which will be identical, will be distributed, at no further cost, to the entire population. So there will be no profit. We shall all equally pay exactly what it costs to build a car and have that car for the equal amount of money we spent.

That sort of economic system has been tried several times in the past. The attempts have not been sustainable. Simply put, human nature doesn't fit into that box.