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MrJiveBoJingles
Supreme tranceaddict

Registered: Jun 2004
Location: U.S.
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This sums up my view pretty accurately, as far as the debate goes:
| quote: | I am as big a believer in the power of the marketplace as anyone, but the market is not the Force. Its powers cannot be harnessed to achieve all policy goals. There are very obvious limits to what the free market is capable of producing. For instance, the market will NEVER lead to the provision of goods and services that are unprofitable. That's why you can't buy an Ipod for a dollar or be chauffeured across town in a limousine for 50 cents an hour. That's why you can't buy private flood insurance if you live in flood plain or buy auto insurance if you're legally blind. The market won't provide these goods and services to you because doing so makes no economic sense.
For some reason, though, conservatives and libertarians like to pretend that these basic rules don't exist when it comes to health care, that if we just did away with Medicare, Medicaid, and various regulations, the market would somehow magically produce affordable medical care and health insurance for everyone, including the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. It is difficult to overstate how divorced from reality this fantasy is.
The free market had plenty of time to work its magic prior to the passage of Medicare, but for obvious reasons, it failed to provide the elderly with any affordable options. Because elderly people require much more in the way of medical services, on average, than younger people, it makes no economic sense to offer them health insurance, at least not at premium levels that most people can afford. The result was an epidemic of uninsured elderly Americans who were being bankrupted by medical bills. That's why Medicare was necessary. It was a response to a massive market failure.
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The bottom line is that, when it comes to health care, all the market is really capable of doing is providing reasonably affordable care to the young and healthy, people for whom the risk profile is essentially random and therefore the economic model more closely resembles that of other major types of insurance (car, home, life). But a system that only covers the young and the healthy is, by definition, a failure. That's why every other industrialized country has long since adopted some sort of government insurance system. Expecting the market to provide affordable health care to all is like expecting the market to provide everyone with an affordable personal chef. It's never gonna happen. |
Of course, you can respond that the elderly should just suck it up and rely on private charity because they should have foreseen their frailty in old age. Is it your fault they failed to save up for the end? Or you can do some hand waving and claim that somehow the market will magically provide affordable insurance to high risk groups even though doing so makes no economic sense whatsoever.

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Mar-22-2010 12:45
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nchs09
Traceaddict in training

Registered: Sep 2003
Location: Inside your mum
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| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
Just google Rasmussen, Gallup, PPP, etc. and it will show. There's no ambiguity.
Well, yes... because in the beginning they did support him. But as the process went on, and more of the bill's content became available, buyer's remorse among the population began to set in; they didn't know "this" is what they were going to get. But even after support plummeted, they still marched on, defying the wishes of the people. This is the difference between Obama and Clinton; in 1994 when the GOP took over the House and Congress, he finally listened to his top advisor Dick Morris and realized he had to become more centrist or lose his 1996 re-election. This time, the Dems are willing to blow up their political careers to pass this. Crazy IMO, but they've been dreaming of this for 100 years; they can relax now because short term losses don't matter. From here on out, it's just going to be a matter of which party that happens to be in power can better manage it. | I am sure that had nothing to do with the fear mongering tactic picked up by the right.....
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| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
OOKA-OOKA ME NACHOS ME PRESS KEYS ON COMPUTER GOOD |
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Mar-22-2010 13:03
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