I bring up Walmart because, when they are in an area, there tend to be few (sometimes no) choices for consumers as Walmart drives other companies out of business. Whether you think this is a good thing or not, justified or not, I am saying that it is common in the real world. The big get bigger.
There is a fallacy in the 'free market' theory in the CW that the 'free market' means lots of companies offering lots of choices. In the real world, concentration is the norm and small selection is also the norm.
If I lived in a smallish town, I would have the option of shopping at Walmart or Walmart or maybe Sam's Club and Walmart. My selection at Walmart would be from big company brand A or big company brand B. The selections are pretty limited even though the number of products is quite large.
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Here you go again, changing the argument when I show you that your position is simply incorrect. Now you are tweaking the definition of a benefit to not include a reduction in taxes by deducting personal debt interest. You used to keep more money if you have personal debt interest, why wasn't that a benefit that is no longer available? You don't think there was a constituency who wanted to keep that deduction?
Yet again, you are tweaking your original point to exclude the welfare to work program. Now you are saying that the benefit isn't an issue if it didn't go to the middle class? What?
I want single payer which, by definition, puts for-profit insurance out of business. Perhaps there would be insurance just in case you want cosmetic surgery but I don't know what kind of market there is for that. I think private health insurance is a lousy business today. I will be happy to see it go.
No, if a government program that covered everyone in the US was working badly, it would be the topic of discussion everywhere. It would also be easier to evaluate and understand since it is a single program and not a hodge podge of programs from (I think it is) 1,000 or more private insurers and government programs.
Instead of individual lawsuits against Healthnet, we would have Congressional Hearings with everyone yelling at the administrator and, probably, cabinet secretary. |
