bsphil wrote:
Given that the reason medicare exists is because of a far greater number of years where there was nothing for seniors - they had to get their insurance on the private market - I'll say no, that's a dumb idea.
And yet, the insurance was less expensive and most people managed to get good care with it even before Medicare came along. The out of pocket cost for health care for seniors are about the same today with medicare as it was before medicare was passed (about 20% of their income). There's no way to calculate the effect on overall life expectancy rates due to numerous factors, but it's absolutely absurd to argue that prior to medicare seniors were just dying in the street from easily cured illnesses and could be saved if only the government stepped in.
The private market did just fine, in fact. And for those who couldn't be covered, there was a (much smaller) government program to help the truly poor and needy. All medicare did was make everyone fall into the public system. And it took a hefty chunk of change out of everyone's paycheck to do it.
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How many times do business have to do what business do (act in their own self-interest to generate profit) without saying that it's a bad idea to apply that principle to health care?
Yet, amazingly, when businesses aren't co-joined at the hip with government money, they manage to consistently use their evil greed to provide better products and services at a lower cost. If only we let them do so. When you provide those businesses with a route to endless free government money, why the hell be shocked when they choose to do the least work possible to get that money?
Isn't it interesting that the areas in which the free market consistently fails to produce better goods/services for lower prices is when the government is heavily involved? There's a curve, in fact. Too little (meaning no anti-trust legislation), and businesses will tend to ***** people, but as you add more beyond that the amount of screwage and lack of cost effectiveness goes up, not down. More regulation and control isn't the answer.
When we get into the areas of business where there is very little direct government control/funding, we see consistent and massive improvements in products and services. I mean, do you think that a company that consistently failed to deliver on their promises would be able to compete in a free market? Of course they wouldn't. It's only when government steps in and make them the only game in town that things get screwy.
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That's a rhetorical question, btw, we both know the answer.
I suspect that is not the case at all.
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You're right here, we should've left the government option in. What was so bad about the government option in the first place? It seems to be what you wanted.
You apparently have no clue what I wanted, despite me writing in great detail about it on numerous occasions in several threads.