Things we'd be talking about if the forum wasn't deadFollow

The American healthcare system is an act of God - the old testament God.

That's a whole different aspect of the issue and is related to poverty. The issue I'm talking about is whether a for-profit food industry does a better job at producing quality and quantity of food for the consumers than a non-profit food industry would do. That some people may still not be able to afford enough food is a completely separate issue.



Um... You get that this is the result of the very issue I'm talking about. This is a case where the profit is driven by something other than customer choice. And the reason? Because the government mandates passed in the ACA create a "free money" condition. That's the problem. When people have to pay for a product out of their pockets, the forces I spoke of exist in the for-profit world. When the government passes a law requiring insurance companies to pay for a product on behalf of consumers, it should be no surprise that prices will rise. Obviously, this is an extreme example, but it's what one should expect when government steps in and does something this dumb.



It took them a long time to get there though. And frankly it was driven by poor comparisons of BBC content to other for-profit content producers. Talk to people about how BBC content was back in the 70s and 80s if you want a better look at this. The point here is that if all television was state run everywhere, that improvement almost certainly would never have happened. People would not have demanded it because they weren't looking over the fence and seeing it done differently/better elsewhere. They'd have seen one station as normal. They'd have seen the content style as normal. They'd never know they were missing a thing called "cable tv" because it would never have been invented.

We live in a world dominated by competition, so we have a hard time actually imagining what the world would be like if it didn't exist. I'll give you a hint though. Think North Korea.

Absolute nonsense. The idea of the government getting involved in healthcare and, for that matter, agribusiness (which it's amusing that you'd use food as an example here) is to ensure that the product or service is available to as many people as possible.


The reason is because of a lock on the market that allowed them to extort money. You realize that pharmaceuticals are a "for-profit" industry right? The kind that, by your definition, gain money by producing the best product for the lowest price? Well, you're wrong. Hilariously, naively, wrong. Like a child is wrong, wrong.


Again, American TV during the 70s and 80s sucked. Very, very little of it has held up. For every Fawlty Towers or Cheers you have a bajillion Three's Company or Small Wonders.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1970s_British_television_series

(In addition to the ones already listed): Are You Being Served?, The Young Ones, The Benny Hill Show, Dave Allen At Large, Life on Earth, Q, Not the Nine O’Clock News, Antiques Roadshow... that's not counting acclaimed dramas and miniseries.

Per capita, there was probably as much good BBC programming being produced in the 70s and 80s as there was from any US network.

I know. I meant to list one esteemed UK and one esteemed US show, but then when listing terrible shows I did two US ones. Mainly because terrible UK shows didn't make US shores so I didn't have a handy reference. I could have been clearer though.

Edited, Sep 21st 2016 11:30am by Jophiel

No it doesn't and no it isn't. People don't choose one hospital over another, if you're going to the hospital you're going to the closest hospital you can get to, or in your case the one your insurance company will pay. Hospitals here don't compete, they share resources. MRI machine too busy? Call the next hospital down the road and send the patient down the road.

Hospitals also don't "bring down the cost of an MRI", anywhere. Companies that make MRI machines do that so they can sell more MRI machines. Funding is based on the number of patients served with a book value for each procedure just like automotive repair. That book value is determined by the medical board based on time and resources required for a given procedure. You'd be hard pressed to find a Canadian that knows what any procedure they've ever had done cost. There are exceptions to this, cosmetic procedures, dental work, essentially most things that are a choice rather than an actual health issue are not covered and rates are set by the doctor and facility, as a result these things tend to be handled by private offices outside of the hospital. I had to pay for circumcision for my sons because it's not medically necessary.

Nobody dies here because they can't get treatment, nobody's family is put into crippling debt because of an accident or sickness, and we pay 10% of what you do for health care. You're doing it wrong. Stop trying to make money off of people's misfortune.

No, our cats wear down their claws on the sides of our igloos.

I'm extremely allergic to cats. They send me to the hospital, which is fine because it's free, like all Canadians.

Nobody isn't quite accurate. Very very rare though.

With Frodo Baggins.

Well, Woods isn't playing Dirk he's playing someone named Todd. Though the guy playing him isn't unattractive or overweight either. Haven't seen the hat, that could go either way.

And by "available to", you don't mean what the term literally means (as in: "is there food available to purchase in the store", but "affordable", and even if affordable, then "provided". The term "available" is horribly misused (in both of those industries). I'll also point out that rates of food insecurity don't seem to change at all based on whether someone receives government assistance though.

But that's really beside the point. I was speaking of the private market that buys food in bulk and packages and sells it in stores. And that industry does a pretty bang up job at making sure we don't have things like shortages and that food is priced as affordably as possible . Which is the primary purpose in this case. There's every likelihood that if the government was in charge of bringing food from the farm to your pantry, the result would be far less selection and far greater total cost.

That's a separate issue from things like farm subsidies to manipulate the supply of certain foods (often to prevent prices dropping so low that farmers can't afford to farm that food anymore). If anything, our private food market is almost too efficient.



Yes. And if they had to sell those pills directly to the customer, no one would pay $700/pill, and they'd make zero profit. Thus, they'd never even attempt it, just as no one tries to charge $100 for a loaf of bread. Same free market forces apply. It's only when the government steps in with some sort of mandate, forcing customers (in this case, the insurance company) to pay for something, that the for-profit guy might just decide to crank up the price.

This is just an extreme example. But tons of other things will also go up in price as a result of this. Just not as much, or as quickly, or as obviously. Which is why those of us who actually understand how markets work have been saying that increased costs will be the result of the individual mandate in the ACA all along. You have to be a complete idiot not to see this obvious outcome.



Except when the government gets involved and makes it possible to make the most profit in some other manner. Just as in this case. See how this is actually a proof of my point? Never mind. You don't. You're wearing liberal blinders which prevent you from seeing this.

Edited, Sep 22nd 2016 4:45pm by gbaji