allow me to give some comparisons about capitalism vs socialism.
when the auto industry first developed, there was very little govt involvement. uncle same did not tell gm or ford whether an auto needed a 4 cyl engine, or 6 cylinder, or 8 cyl, or a v12. the govt did not mandate the size or length or the vehicle, or what price to sell it at.
and over time you have a better car at a better price. (when you adjust for inflation). a 1947 ford was a better car than a 1927 ford. a 1955 chevy was a better car than a 1935 chevy. etc.
not all cars were good cars, and some companies went bankrupt. but when you adjust for inflation, you get a better car at a better price. (capitalism).
compare this to the cars made in russia or east germany during the 50's, 60's, or 70's. (socialism).
or if you look at the cell phone industry... other than auctioning off airwaves, there is little govt involvement. the feds do not tell apple what size to make the phone, or battery life, or camera, or whether it should play music, or what browser to use. and over time, you get a better phone at a better price.
but... with the ACA, you do NOT get a better product at a better price. we get horrible service (my experience) at a far worse price. (yes, i know people who love obamacare. they are glad to have a handout and insurance, and they do NOT care if others get royally f*%#@*d over by the program).
but the ACA does Not give the masses a better product at a better price.
if you do not understand what i am saying,... go read "The Trial" by Kafka.
this does Not mean i am a complete anarchist.
i do want a road to drive on. i have no problem paying my fair share of taxes to pay for the road.
i have no problem paying for our local public schools (which are actually good schools). (but i think teachers need to work for a few more years before collecting their pension).
public pensions are a massive black hole if the worker stops too early and collects for too long. this is a Massive problem in the western world.
Thanks much bear!
I agree almost entirely with your thoughts. Capitalism is far superior for almost every realm in the economy and society that trades using a free market based on the laws of demand and supply.
You give some wonderful, authentic examples.
However, I strongly disagree when it comes to the healthcare.
As much as some claim and others wish, the vast majority of huge spending is not based on free market/demand-supply principles.
Competition does not determine prices and regardless of whether you think its a right or not(Tim does not) we all need healthcare, which makes it different than material items in a capitalistic realm.
If TV's for instance, were 100 times the price that they cost in 1960's, like some healthcare items/expenses...people would just stop buying TV's. ....until the price became affordable.
Or cell phones, which we all need were 20 times the cost of when they first came out, people couldn't afford them and sales would plunge. But that doesn't happen because many companies make tv's and cell phones and cars and other stuff and they compete with each other for your business by offering value for their products. Those that don't... lose sales and go out of business or they drop prices/add features to create value.
Health/medical care is NOT like that at all.
There are millions of people that have heart disease and need a bypass surgery or that have cancer or get into a major car accident or have a serious illness that requires hospitalization, where they can't delay or avoid purchasing a service/item, like they can a tv or cell phone or car because its too expensive.
They have no choice. Pay the price or risk dying.
There can be no shopping around in most cases. If you need to be hospitalized, it's usually a serious life threatening issue. Even if you could, waiting a few days to find the best deal might mean serious consequences to your health.
Hospitalizations account for 31% of health care.
Having private health insurance has actually made it worse in many ways:
https://truecostofhealthcare.org/hospital_financial_analysis/
"6. The proportion of a hospital bill a private insurance company pays is substantially higher, on average, than the proportion Medicare or Medicaid pays, and that difference has grown steadily since 2000.
7. Private health insurance companies deliberately overpay hospitals to ensure that their revenues continue to grow each year.
8. Hospital costs per enrollee have been nearly static for Medicare and Medicaid recipients since 2008, whereas they’ve grown by more than 60% for the privately insured."
The ACA made it even worse yet because it was not used to force prices down, like government controlled Medicare can do because it represents such a massive number of patients, but instead, it caused prices to go even higher, much higher.
But politicians and the FDA love this current system, despite what they claim. It's their cash cow. They get many millions of dollars from big pharma and hospitals as legal bribes/donations often in the form of lobby money so those government entities that could pass legislation to lower/fix prices, instead allows them to increase prices.
We see wimpy bills that are meant to look like they are doing something, when they are not and don't want to change the system. Trick the consumer/voter into thinking that you are doing something to help them, while they sock it to us to perpetuate a system that provides personal enrichment for the politicians, government, health care and insurance companies.
This is what our politicians are doing with healthcare. This is not my opinion.....its the reality:
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/65512/#65584
The healthcare system in the US is way beyond broken and can't be fixed by using a non existent free market system.
Cutting costs by 10% or 20% is not even close to fixing it.
Cutting costs by 50% would only bring us down to what other people in the developed world pay who have comparable health care and in many cases, longer life spans/quality of life.
For the greatest country in the world, it makes no sense to have the worst health care system of all based on value.
We pay twice as much as the average developed country for healthcare, $11,000/person (and for family healthcare insurance plans $20,000/family on top of that). Our life expectancy is behind more than 40 other countries.
We deserve so much better than this.
Only a complete over hall will work. We already tried private health care for decades and tens of millions were left out at the worlds highest costs. Been there, done that over and over and over and clearly, it will never work for many tens of millions............in fact, the majority are getting messed over........ considering how we are ALL getting our arses taken to the cleaners to the point of it being embarrassing if you look at the stats.
Some medium to lower income families have to dole out half their income if they want decent medical health insurance.
Time to completely replace it with whats working much better in many other countries. Not perfect but almost anything is better than this. Yeah, it's a form of socialism.
Our good neighbors to the north and our friend/poster Wayne have a system that Wayne is satisfied with, for instance.
Yeah, socialized medicine.
Some people are so turned off by the idea of any type of socialism in the US, that they will tolerate being #1 in the world, by a wide margin for being totally ripped of by our health care system....instead of considering a much better alternative that's proving itself viable in other countries...............because its a form of socialism.
I honestly don't know how else to explain this to you. I'll stop trying.