My issue is with congress intervening. They should try to prevent wars from starting, not hamper the ability to fight once they have.
That power was taken away from them and given to the president as a consequence of Vietnam. Three times the Supreme Court was asked to rule on the consitutionality of an undeclared "police action," and all three times they declined.
I seriously doubt we can fix our government with out a violent revolution
If you truly believe this, I have nothing further to say to you, other than that if you wish to solve our problems with open rebellion, I will be willing to rejoin the military. Revolt is not the answer, it will cause more problems than it will solve, and I'll die in a government uniform before I let you go through with it.
Do understand if I choose not to wish you a good day, sir.
My issue is with congress intervening. They should try to prevent wars from starting, not hamper the ability to fight once they have.That power was taken away from them and given to the president as a consequence of Vietnam. Three times the Supreme Court was asked to rule on the consitutionality of an undeclared "police action," and all three times they declined.
That was a mistake. The Supreme Court should have ruled that congress needs to approve such things, not provided the CIC a blank check for combat. Unless there are foreign troops on US soil, we should be asking congress before deploying troops in combat.
That was a mistake. The Supreme Court should have ruled that congress needs to approve such things, not provided the CIC a blank check for combat.
Sure, but what's done is done. Undeclared war at the whim of the president is the reality we have to deal with now, even though you and I both think it shouldn't be.
That isn't always the case and I would have to say that in order to really push that would require completely ignoring the many good and proper things the government has and continues to do.
If we are going to go with "why give them power when they just abuse it" I would have to point out that corporations and businesses are just as bad if not worse -- after all business has been around much longer, and done much worse things.
Wait a second.
Business has done much worse things than government?
What has business done that's much worse than the genocide of hundreds of millions of people or the systematic rape, torture, and enslavement of countless millions?
Am I completely misunderstanding your argument here??
That was a mistake. The Supreme Court should have ruled that congress needs to approve such things, not provided the CIC a blank check for combat.Sure, but what's done is done. Undeclared war at the whim of the president is the reality we have to deal with now, even though you and I both think it shouldn't be.
We can always try to ask congress to take that power away or ask SCOTUS to finally make a ruling once we deal with congress's corruption issue (which is as simple as some federal bribery prosecutions, campaign spending caps, and a new round of congressional elections).
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That isn't always the case and I would have to say that in order to really push that would require completely ignoring the many good and proper things the government has and continues to do.
If we are going to go with "why give them power when they just abuse it" I would have to point out that corporations and businesses are just as bad if not worse -- after all business has been around much longer, and done much worse things.
Wait a second.
Business has done much worse things than government?
What has business done that's much worse than the genocide of hundreds of millions of people or the systematic rape, torture, and enslavement of countless millions?
intentionally turn a profit as a direct result.
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What has business done that's much worse than the genocide of hundreds of millions of people or the systematic rape, torture, and enslavement of countless millions?
The instances you cite required government and business, sharing the blame. In the case of Nazi Germany, it was outright collusion similar to what we have now in the U.S.; in Stalin's USSR is was the fact that the government had annexed all the businesses to use to its own ends, but in both cases it's the concentration of power -- government and big business acting in concert instead of against each other -- that allowed things to get to that point.
Dole death squads?
+1 Every worthwhile leader in South America got run out of office because it benefited big business. A lot of what the government does is done because corporations want it done, including most of the atrocities in South America and the Middle East.
So how does this argue against getting gov't out of business?
So how does this argue against getting gov't out of business?
It doesn't. It argues for getting business out of government. What argues against getting government out of business is the fact that businesses have repeatedly proven they will do whatever they can to make a profit. Remember the industrial revolution?
I don't think that a civilian CIC was a bad idea. The constitution has many good ideas. I just don't buy into the idea that the founding fathers were primarily freedom fighters. They had a lot of economic interest in the revolution, and I don't consider what they thought relevant to modern issues.
My issue is with not letting the military do what it needs to do after a war begins. By all means, make civilians start the wars and not the military, and only start wars when it is absolutely, positively necessary. The Cuban Missile Crisis was NOT a war, and therefore the fact that the military did not handle it in the end was a good thing. I'm all for not starting a fight in the first place, and letting civilians keep an eye on what the military is doing. Once a fight does start, however, the military should be allowed to do what it feels necessary to win without having to ask congress, short of deploying WMDs or invading neutral entities. War isn't pretty, and instead of trying to make it pretty we should be trying to not start wars in the first place.
I have ambiguous feeling about your statements. I you mean, for example, that generals can command sniper to kill in cold blood enemy oficer then i agree with you, use bombs agains enemy caravans then I agree with you, war is war.
But If you mean somethin like use chemical weapons (and others prohibite weapons), torture prisioners, then i have to disagree with you.
Most of Us wars begins by saying that US have a higher moral than the enemy, like "we attack Iran because houssein was a ruthless tyrant that kiil his people", but how would you say that sirya`s president is a cruel tyran for attacking the rebels if you allow/aprove using that kind of strategies?.
We have the Geneva Convention to handle those issues. We don't need congress micromanaging on top of it. They should be busy trying to avoid wars from starting in the first place.
What we should do is rule that, as far as the US is concerned, the Geneva Convention applies to anyone who says they are at war with us, uniformed or not. With that in place, we'd be just fine without congress getting involved in military strategy.
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So how does this argue against getting gov't out of business?
Because if you strip government down to a helpless nothing, then big business will happily fill that power vacuum, and you have exactly the concentration of power that we DON'T want.
And the insurance companies don't? Remember, sick people are bad for profits.Unless you consider that one of the reasons it costs 2k for a check up is government involvement in the first place.
There was a time when the government wasn't involved with healthcare choices.
At that time Lysol was sold as a female intimate cleaning product and cocaine was an over the counter drink.
It wasn't that long ago (less than a century) and there is very good reason we and the rest of the world moved away from that model.
and within my lifetime a trip to the doctor cost $5, and people developed a relationship with their health care providers because the doctor worked for me not an insurance corporation.
I've seen over and over what a corrupt and incompetent state does with the power to decide who gets life saving medical care. They abuse it.
The more power you give them the more they abuse it. Why give them more and more power?
If there is an actual competitive market place of individuals purchasing insurance and health care directly insurers have the incentives of the market place to punish duplicity and the law should still punish fraud and murder.
If I pay for my health care directly the provider has an incentive to keep me happy and keep my business.
Our current government controlled system creates horrible incentives through third party payers.
Why should Joe care if the hospital grossly over charges for a treatment he doesn't need? It's probably being paid for by an insurance company you hate through a boss you hate.
Likewise if my doctor is the only one in my network, he has zero incentive to keep me happy where else am I going to go? I'm not really his customer; his incentive is to keep the insurance corporation happy.
I still maintain that the government is responsible for these insane distortions.
If there is an actual competitive market place of individuals purchasing insurance and health care directly insurers have the incentives of the market place to punish duplicity and the law should still punish fraud and murder.
If I pay for my health care directly the provider has an incentive to keep me happy and keep my business.
Our current government controlled system creates horrible incentives through third party payers.
Why should Joe care if the hospital grossly over charges for a treatment he doesn't need? It's probably being paid for by an insurance company you hate through a boss you hate.
Likewise if my doctor is the only one in my network, he has zero incentive to keep me happy where else am I going to go? I'm not really his customer; his incentive is to keep the insurance corporation happy.
I still maintain that the government is responsible for these insane distortions.
It is, indirectly, by lifting the government regulation that formerly prevented HMOs from selling to employers instead of health care recipients. Until 1973, each HMO or provider dealt with each consumer, as you advocate -- they had to, due to government rules and oversight. Then the government decided to "get out of the way of business," and said, "you know what? You HMOs should be allowed to do what you want." The HMOs stopped selling to consumers, started marketing volume packages to employers instead, and there you have it. The government did not create HMOs. All it did was decide, during Nixon's administration, to stop fettering them.
no offence intended to you guys over in america, but from where i'm standing (and i admit that i haven't done much research on the issue) it seems that the reason the general population allows these pointless wars to happen, even supports them, is because for some unknowable reason many americans feel that their country are the police force of the world.
you're not, and it's an attitude that severely annoys me and many people i know (likely many people across the world, but i can't speak for them).
What has business done that's much worse than the genocide of hundreds of millions of people or the systematic rape, torture, and enslavement of countless millions?The instances you cite required government and business, sharing the blame. In the case of Nazi Germany, it was outright collusion similar to what we have now in the U.S.; in Stalin's USSR is was the fact that the government had annexed all the businesses to use to its own ends, but in both cases it's the concentration of power -- government and big business acting in concert instead of against each other -- that allowed things to get to that point.
I guess I'll give you state business collusion in fascism for the sake of argument although I have a tough time seeing how extermination millions of Jews profited, say, BMW.
But when socialist regimes nationalize business and industrial assets by force and use those assets to commit genocide I'm not really following how the business shares the blame in any meaningful way.
Can you help me out with an example or two?
But the US army DO violate that convetion. I agree military tactic should be defined by militars but that tactic should not break international conventions.We have the Geneva Convention to handle those issues. We don't need congress micromanaging on top of it. They should be busy trying to avoid wars from starting in the first place.
What we should do is rule that, as far as the US is concerned, the Geneva Convention applies to anyone who says they are at war with us, uniformed or not. With that in place, we'd be just fine without congress getting involved in military strategy.
Actually, the Army doesn't violate it, because it doesn't apply right now. It should apply, but it doesn't, because it specifically excludes ununiformed combatants from having any right under the treaty. I think we should rule that, from now on, it does apply to ununiformed combatants, but until we do it is legally impossible for us to violate the Geneva Convention. You can't violate something that doesn't cover the type of conflict we are fighting.
What amending our view of the treaty would do is close the current legal gray area as to the treatment of insurgents.
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no offence intended to you guys over in america, but from where i'm standing (and i admit that i haven't done much research on the issue) it seems that the reason the general population allows these pointless wars to happen, even supports them, is because for some unknowable reason many americans feel that their country are the police force of the world.
you're not, and it's an attitude that severely annoys me and many people i know (likely many people across the world, but i can't speak for them).
It annoys us Americans, too.
It is, indirectly, by lifting the government regulation that formerly prevented HMOs from selling to employers instead of health care recipients. Until 1973, each HMO or provider dealt with each consumer, as you advocate -- they had to, due to government rules and oversight. Then the government decided to "get out of the way of business," and said, "you know what? You HMOs should be allowed to do what you want." The HMOs stopped selling to consumers, started marketing volume packages to employers instead, and there you have it. The government did not create HMOs. All it did was decide, during Nixon's administration, to stop fettering them.If there is an actual competitive market place of individuals purchasing insurance and health care directly insurers have the incentives of the market place to punish duplicity and the law should still punish fraud and murder.
If I pay for my health care directly the provider has an incentive to keep me happy and keep my business.
Our current government controlled system creates horrible incentives through third party payers.
Why should Joe care if the hospital grossly over charges for a treatment he doesn't need? It's probably being paid for by an insurance company you hate through a boss you hate.
Likewise if my doctor is the only one in my network, he has zero incentive to keep me happy where else am I going to go? I'm not really his customer; his incentive is to keep the insurance corporation happy.
I still maintain that the government is responsible for these insane distortions.
Are you seriously arguing that the government has no responsibility for setting up the system that employers control your health benefits in the first place?
They didn't step out of the way of a free market. The government did quite the opposite. They facilitated HMO's profiting off of an already incredibly distorted system.
It annoys us Americans, too.no offence intended to you guys over in america, but from where i'm standing (and i admit that i haven't done much research on the issue) it seems that the reason the general population allows these pointless wars to happen, even supports them, is because for some unknowable reason many americans feel that their country are the police force of the world.
you're not, and it's an attitude that severely annoys me and many people i know (likely many people across the world, but i can't speak for them).
+1
intentionally turn a profit as a direct result.That isn't always the case and I would have to say that in order to really push that would require completely ignoring the many good and proper things the government has and continues to do.
If we are going to go with "why give them power when they just abuse it" I would have to point out that corporations and businesses are just as bad if not worse -- after all business has been around much longer, and done much worse things.
Wait a second.
Business has done much worse things than government?
What has business done that's much worse than the genocide of hundreds of millions of people or the systematic rape, torture, and enslavement of countless millions?
Help me out with some examples if you would.
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1. I have a tough time seeing how extermination millions of Jews profited, say, BMW.
2. But when socialist regimes nationalize business and industrial assets by force and use those assets to commit genocide I'm not really following how the business shares the blame in any meaningful way.
Can you help me out with an example or two?
1. Someone has to build all those railroads, concentration camps, and ovens, and make all that poison gas. Genocide is very good for business, as long as someone else's consumer base is being targetted.
2. Then the government and businesses are one and the same entity -- you can't separate them, or separate the blame.
Look, BT, I know you think that only government can ever be corrupt, but that's not true. Concentrated power corrupts. It does that when a religion has too much power (as the historical Catholic Church or current radical Islam), it does that when a nation's government has too much power, and it does that when an unfetted business gets big enough to have too much power.
You're going to have to hit me up with some serious evidence here. Many and some aren't going to cut it when 0% can be quoted as a figure in a negotiation.Because without the government getting in the way the doctor or insurance company works for me. If I don't like the job they are doing I fire them and get another one.Why would anyone want to surrender this kind of power to corporations solely out to make money?You know how this could be solved? Socialized medicine. It's just about time.Why would anyone want to surrender this kind of power to a corrupt and incompetent state?And if you can't afford to pay, you die. Probably spending every last penny you have in the process and leaving your family destitute.
That, in a nutshell, is why we need government involved in healthcare.
False.
Many medical providers provided free health care to those in need without state coercion. Some still do.
The assumption that every needy person will die if the government doesn't constantly keep a gun to all of our heads is simply horse crap.
Charity at gun point by a corrupt and incompetent state is not morally superior.
Would you like evidence for medical charities historically or currently?
Here are a few hundred contemporary medical charities, but I'm sure many of them get government funding. Some are research too.
Charity Navigator Handy site BTW.
I'm not a fan of the Catholic Church, but they do a lot of charitable medical care. I presume they sometimes get government funds for providing some of these services which I don't approve of.
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That isn't always the case and I would have to say that in order to really push that would require completely ignoring the many good and proper things the government has and continues to do.
If we are going to go with "why give them power when they just abuse it" I would have to point out that corporations and businesses are just as bad if not worse -- after all business has been around much longer, and done much worse things.
Wait a second.
Business has done much worse things than government?
What has business done that's much worse than the genocide of hundreds of millions of people or the systematic rape, torture, and enslavement of countless millions?
Am I completely misunderstanding your argument here??
Actually I would suggest that many of those things have been done exactly for business and business interests. East India trading company has done horrific things in the name of profits (including rape, torture, enslavement and kidnapping). The cigarette companies have killed countless millions with their cancer sticks. Lets not forget the whole purpose of slaves was entirely economic and completely in line with free market principles.
The problem with the free market is it is at best amoral, and at worse immoral. The entire concept of the 'free market' is based on praxeology which is strictly without moral baggage. The cost of the 'free' market is morality itself.
People forget the market only exists to serve people -- it has not right to existence any more than any other group or function does. Much like any other tool it has some extremely useful function, but outside of those uses it is usually a liability.
I find the same rules I applied to the military earlier applies to business just as easily. They need strict framework (laws and regulation) to work in to their only goal (profits). The need for laws and regulation is to prevent the sort of abuses that those seeking profits will always commit without the laws in place.
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Are you seriously arguing that the government has no responsibility for setting up the system that employers control your health benefits in the first place?
They didn't step out of the way of a free market. The government did quite the opposite. They facilitated HMO's profiting off of an already incredibly distorted system.
The problem is that they facilitated, rather than stayed in the way. The HMOs, again, are not a government creation. They formed out of free market forces: it's cheaper to sell in bulk; a doctor doesn't want to do all his own marketing, so he hires a 3rd party to do it. Enough others do, and you have an HMO. Employers now control your health benefits as a consequence of that same free market force: there is more profit in bulk sales than there is in direct-consumer haggling. You can blame government for making it easier for the HMOs to do what they did, but you can't blame government for their creation, nor for the fact that they make more money selling insurance in packages than individually.
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Medical charities exist -- but by virtue of existing they prove the point that a purely free market system fails to provide correctly for all involved in the system.
America has been accused of violating international law in the Middle East, but we refuse to recognize international law, so we can't violate it. I don't think this is right, but it's the way it is. If we don't recognize something, it can't be violated.
Really, though, I don't think war needs a lot of rules. The Geneva Convention works fine, if only it applied (it doesn't). We don't need more than a modified Geneva Convention that does apply. Anything further would hamper our ability to fight.
Then again, I don't agree with the Middle Eastern wars in the first place.
To continue on the business that kills theme, we also have the banana republics to throw on the pile that happened strictly because wealthy businesses thought it would be easier to simply buy up countries to build railroads and then decided to abuse the country more by forcing it into rampant banana production to give them something to sell in the states.
Coal companies used to make claims such as smog being good for your complexion and health -- again Lysol was marketed as a feminine intimate hygiene product.
Capitalism as a tool isn't a bad or evil thing -- capitalism without restraint is a horrible thing that works evil continuously. Capitalism works because it is greed based, it is easy to understand and easy to push for more, however greed is not a virtue.
The problem is that they facilitated, rather than stayed in the way. The HMOs, again, are not a government creation. They formed out of free market forces: it's cheaper to sell in bulk; a doctor doesn't want to do all his own marketing, so he hires a 3rd party to do it. Enough others do, and you have an HMO. Employers now control your health benefits as a consequence of that same free market force: there is more profit in bulk sales than there is in direct-consumer haggling. You can blame government for making it easier for the HMOs to do what they did, but you can't blame government for their creation, nor for the fact that they make more money selling insurance in packages than individually.Are you seriously arguing that the government has no responsibility for setting up the system that employers control your health benefits in the first place?
They didn't step out of the way of a free market. The government did quite the opposite. They facilitated HMO's profiting off of an already incredibly distorted system.
I have no counter for the bulk argument in market terms except to point out that there is still a vigorous individual life insurance market in spite of the availability of group life insurance through some jobs.
I concede that markets are not perfect but they usually have the merit of not being built on force and coercion like government.
What I can't understand in your reasoning is the idea that the government is blameless for creating the massive market distortions in the first place.
Or is blameless not representative of your position? (I may be inferring too much.)
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That isn't always the case and I would have to say that in order to really push that would require completely ignoring the many good and proper things the government has and continues to do.
If we are going to go with "why give them power when they just abuse it" I would have to point out that corporations and businesses are just as bad if not worse -- after all business has been around much longer, and done much worse things.
Wait a second.
Business has done much worse things than government?
What has business done that's much worse than the genocide of hundreds of millions of people or the systematic rape, torture, and enslavement of countless millions?
Am I completely misunderstanding your argument here??
Actually I would suggest that many of those things have been done exactly for business and business interests. East India trading company has done horrific things in the name of profits (including rape, torture, enslavement and kidnapping). The cigarette companies have killed countless millions with their cancer sticks. Lets not forget the whole purpose of slaves was entirely economic and completely in line with free market principles.
The problem with the free market is it is at best amoral, and at worse immoral. The entire concept of the 'free market' is based on praxeology which is strictly without moral baggage. The cost of the 'free' market is morality itself.
People forget the market only exists to serve people -- it has not right to existence any more than any other group or function does. Much like any other tool it has some extremely useful function, but outside of those uses it is usually a liability.
I find the same rules I applied to the military earlier applies to business just as easily. They need strict framework (laws and regulation) to work in to their only goal (profits). The need for laws and regulation is to prevent the sort of abuses that those seeking profits will always commit without...
You talk about the free market as though it is some entity outside of human rights. I have the right to trade with others as I see fit that doesn't harm others. My rights are not predicated on how they do or do not serve you.
Or is blameless not representative of your position? (I may be inferring too much.)
"Blameless" is NOT my position for the HMO Act. "A minor partner, sharing some of the blame, and increasingly happy to do so" would be closer to the mark for the government's role since 1973. Before that, yes, they're largely blameless: they didn't start the ball rolling -- market forces did that all by themseleves -- but at one point the government decided to stop holding them back and start actively helping them along, and that's when this whole thing started snowballing into the fiasco we see today.
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Your rights are also easily violated if not protected -- the free market will not protect your rights. It has no reason to do so (and has plenty of reasons to not do so).
A government might -- it can do so more if it is a strong government than if it is a weak one. A government is the collective will of the people governed, it is up to them to keep it and tend to it. Much like a field of produce or any machinery if you have good upkeep and you tend/use it carefully it will last forever -- if you abuse it and don't do the upkeep it will fall apart and not do the job well.
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Medical charities exist -- but by virtue of existing they prove the point that a purely free market system fails to provide correctly for all involved in the system.
It hardly proves the moral superiority of charity at gunpoint over voluntary charity.
I would consider voluntary charity part of the free market also.
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Or is blameless not representative of your position? (I may be inferring too much.)"Blameless" is NOT my position for the HMO Act. "A minor partner, sharing some of the blame, and increasingly happy to do so" would be closer to the mark for the government's role since 1973. Before that, yes, they're largely blameless: they didn't start the ball rolling -- market forces did that all by themseleves -- but at one point the government decided to stop holding them back and start actively helping them along, and that's when this whole thing started snowballing into the fiasco we see today.
I disagree. I would argue that the bulk of the blame lies with FDR.
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Your rights are also easily violated if not protected -- the free market will not protect your rights. It has no reason to do so (and has plenty of reasons to not do so).
A government might -- it can do so more if it is a strong government than if it is a weak one. A government is the collective will of the people governed, it is up to them to keep it and tend to it. Much like a field of produce or any machinery if you have good upkeep and you tend/use it carefully it will last forever -- if you abuse it and don't do the upkeep it will fall apart and not do the job well.
An anarcho capitalist would disagree, but I accept government as a necessary evil that can be tolerated in the interest of protecting rights.
I disagree. I would argue that the bulk of the blame lies with FDR.
If almost any of what he'd been pushing for had passed, I might agree with you, but IIRC all of his real national health insurance initiatives died stillborn. Truman's New Deal medical reform initiatives all failed as well. Medicare didn't hit the scene until the 1960s, but I maintain that the HMO Act did more to lead to our current situation than the existence of Medicare did -- remember that before that, there was also a limit on annual rate increases (bad for business in an inflationary economy).
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I disagree. I would argue that the bulk of the blame lies with FDR.If almost any of what he'd been pushing for had passed, I might agree with you, but IIRC all of his real national health insurance initiatives died stillborn. Truman's New Deal medical reform initiatives all failed as well. Medicare didn't hit the scene until the 1960s, but I maintain that the HMO Act did more to lead to our current situation than the existence of Medicare did -- remember that before that, there was also a limit on annual rate increases (bad for business in an inflationary economy).
Of course I despise FDR, Truman, and LBJ, but FDR really got the ball rolling IMO.
Insurance rates are still controlled by the government in the form of the state insurance commissions and now Obamacare.
All these massive rate increases are approved by the government.
I also believe that Medicare, Medicaid, VA, Native American, and corrections health care spending is now the majority of medical spending. In other words our current system is already more than half socialized, and heavily controlled by the government even before Obamacare.
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Wow you really need to research that position because the one bright spot in the health care system is the government controlled end -- it is cheaper than anything that is out there and functioning on the private sector end.
Health Insurance is nothing more than a leech on the health care system that should be killed with extreme prejudice.
America has been accused of violating international law in the Middle East, but we refuse to recognize international law, so we can't violate it. I don't think this is right, but it's the way it is. If we don't recognize something, it can't be violated.
I still do not understand your point entirely but at leat you do not think it is right, wich is good to hear.
My point is that, because the US is not a signatory to most international military law treaties, they don't apply to us any more than, say, Japanese civil law. I don't agree with the fact that we currently have no concrete legal regulations for dealing with insurgents, but for the present that is how it is.
That said, I also don't think we need to sign a whole bunch of complicated stuff. At most, a Geneva Convention-type document that applies to insurgents. That's just enough to regulate the military without getting in the way of viable military strategy and letting congress micromanage conflicts.
More corruption and cover up.
More corruption and cover up.
At least these guys are getting charged and fired. Now if only we did that with congress.
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BT, let me see if I understand where you're coming from here and then pose you a hypothetical question.
You think that all (most?) of the problems with our current healthcare system come from government interference starting with FDR's possibly unintentional support of employer based healthcare and made worse by many actions since then. Is that roughly correct?
It's hard to disprove, since we can't run the experiment again without government interference, but there are a lot of other reasons medicine has gotten more expensive over the years. Frankly, we're a lot better at it. There are a lot more specialities, a lot more training, a lot more medicines that cost a bundle to develop and sometimes even to make, a lot more expensive diagnostic tools and treatment programs. A lot of things that would simply have killed you quickly 60 years ago can now be cured, or at least kept at bay for years. You couldn't rack up $100,000 worth of medical treatment easily in the 30s because anything that bad would just kill you. If you had a heart attack, you didn't get bypass surgery and a pacemaker, you just hoped the next one wouldn't come to soon. If you had cancer you didn't get months of chemo, etc, etc.
So how much of the increase in cost, beyond inflation, is due to actual increases in our ability to treat medical problems and how much is, in your opinion, due to government interference?
Now for the hypothetical: I know you'll disagree with the premise here, but purely as a thought experiment. Let's assume that we try your approach, get government out of healthcare entirely. No Medicare, Medicaid, no rules for insurance companies or employers (beyond contract enforcement and the like), no tax deduction, no interference at all. Take a completely free market approach. Give it 10 or 20 years.
What would you say if it doesn't work? If prices drop, but not enough
that people can get even as much of the medical care they need as they do now. Charity helps, but not enough to cover the gap. Life expectancy...
For me it probably would not change my position. I tend to value individual liberty and Constitutional purity the most.
For example if someone could provide evidence that the worst elements of the Patriot act had saved lives I'm still opposed to the patriot act.
I truthfully can't imagine anything that would convince me that coercion and violence are a better way to govern than voluntary interaction for issue that don't initiate force.
That said I think the discussion about the effectiveness of the coercive government programs can be informative, and very few people are as ideological as I.
I think the massive distortions that the government has injected into the system have been inflationary and intensely destructive. I find a study of elective medicine informative in this regard. Health care that people pay for directly has gotten much cheaper and better. I think this is primarily due to market competition. I think market competition has resulted in cheaper, better, more available technology in other areas, and I think the opposite is happening in medicine due to the virtual monopolies and other massive distortions created by government manipulation.