Comments on: Private Sector Socialism

By: Valentin Dinsdale

Valentin Dinsdale — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:08:44 +0000

you call that a good story?

By: Should We Be Able To Buy Insurance Across State Lines? – Health Affairs Blog

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:51:40 +0000

[...] healthy are overcharged so that the small percent who are sick can be undercharged. This form of private sector socialism would quickly dissolve, as the healthy sought cheaper insurance under other regulatory [...]

By: What's Really Broken?

What's Really Broken? — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 04:28:03 +0000

Why not eliminate health insurance and allow patients to pay directly their providers? I’ll say it again: health insurance DRIVES COSTS UP!!!!

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:53:53 +0000

“At the top of my list of foolish things is the idea that no one should ever have to pay the real cost of his own health insurance.”

John – Fine article. And did not Frederic Bastiat point out earlier that “The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else”?
-Frédéric Bastiat, “The State,” 1848.

By: Terry Gannon

Terry Gannon — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:21:12 +0000

In response to Adam, you are very charged up. Yes the debate is near and dear. I would offer to your rational side that the question of healthcare can be quite distinquished as either a right or a service. If it is a right, which from your arguments I can see some support in your thinking. I would in short suggest to you that it is not, and that perhaps viewing it as a service is not as bad a thing as you would suggest. Certainly healthcare is not like an oil change, but is it any different than having food or water? What about food rights? What we are seeing in Congress is more about control over the populace than real cost improvement and insurance extension to the uninsured. To cover 10 million chronically uninsured we are spending nearer $2T over not even the next 10 years, instead of buying them a policy for a total of $100-400B for the same time period.
Adam we need to view these polocies in terms of payback, freedom and control. Obamacare fails on all counts.

By: Ron Bachman

Ron Bachman — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:27:22 +0000

You are trying to find solutions to health, healthcare, and health insurance. That is NOT what this Congress is doing. This is about POWER and CONTROL. It is better suited to their desires to distort real economics so that they can redistribute wealth from one group to another. Overcharge the young and small businesses so that the gov’t can subsidize the overcharging to gain political advantage and support from those groups deemed acceptable to such subsidies. In the end, the majoriy of the redistribution is to the non-producers in this country who would not know a small business opportunity if it bit them.

By: hungry4food

hungry4food — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 05:49:36 +0000

Subject: does the CBO cost Estimate on health care reform include this factor ???

With or without a Government Option in Health Care , will the cost of Health care premiums dramatically rise as the Baby Boomer generations rapidly start to pass on and this cost burden of dealing with the last years of life as the cost of health care increases in the last years of ones life on average , shift hard onto the Middle class taxpayer as more and more revenue flows are needed by proxy as profits shrink for insurers ?

This is a doomsday scenario for the private insurance Companies , because of the age dynamics in US population as the elderly average age at the time of death becomes more and more concentrated and costs associated rise with this phenomena .

With this cost compounding factor in the prilimnary stages why isn’t this in the Health care reform , for the Critically ill and Terminally ill , as a supplemental ???

By: ArchM

ArchM — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:59:32 +0000

I cannot help but express the exasperation I feel. So, the author is saying that everyone’s IQ drops when talking about healthcare, except for his own? It seems more likely that he just kept writing in order to prove his point.
1. To say that a persons access to health care is like any other commodity or market good is absurd. It is NOT!!! Health care is literally about life or death. To attach a price and conduct healing as a transaction is an assault on human decency and morals.
2. We need a fair system for everyone, and if government can provide then by all means, give them the keys. We certainly have not gotten it from anywhere else. Do people not think it is absurd for 1 in every 7 dollars to go to the CEO of Cigna. Or that we could pay for healthcare for everysingle person in America simply by eleminating the paperwork processed through the insurance industry. There’s got to be something a better a better calling for the people that work there.
3. “give us your money and we’ll take care of you” – you know I would really like to own a bridge over the east river; I could put a hot dog stand there! I think the problem we have is the collusion between government and the market, neither one is playing its proper role. The insurance industry is just trying to milk money from people without providing any adequate service. The government is attempting to pass a reform that says to the people, ‘we won’t let them milk you’, all the while letting the companies do exactly that just so they’ll stay in their seats.
4. btw, jennie is only stating reality and if reality is depressing maybe you should change it and not deny it.
5. John Galt also said reality is the ultimate judge of truth and values
6. I hate statistics, especially the one where 80 some odd percent of people say the are satisfied with his/her healthcare. THAT SURVEY ONLY INCLUDES PEOPLE WHO HAVE NEVER USED THEIR COVERAGE FOR ANYTHING BEYOND BASIC HEALTHCARE, LIKE PHYSICALS OR CHECKUPS FOR THE COLD! People who have actually used healthcare, it’s not so high.
7. Those people that say America has the best healthcare [anything, really] are idiots. We only have the best if each american commits to the values that lead to excellence and that is assuredly not true. That doesn’t mean we aren’t a great nation.

ok, that should be enough even though there’s a million more things to say.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:31:33 +0000

John W: I hope you never become homeless and on the point of starvation. If it happens to you, maybe you will apppreciate that humans have many needs. Maybe it will also occur to you that you have a better chance of having all your needs met if the production of these goods and services is not socialized.

By: Bob Geist

Bob Geist — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:22:04 +0000

John, a more accurate term than “private socialism” is coporate socialism–in both case the mantra is the same: Give us your money and we’ll take care of you.” if you believe that, I have a bridge over the East River for sale. When corporate socialism is welded to govenrment power, we have a cartel system that mimics the socialized government-NHS cartels abroad–this is the nature of ObmamCare. The corporate socialists are protesting because the government seems to be backing out of its promise of an absolute guaratee of coercing Americans into being corporate customers. All of this is ugly and its called “managed competition”. next, who will control the cartel? Let’s see how the corporate interest fares in the long run, not the current argumnet over the degree of coercing the public.