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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: fresc who wrote (357)	1/21/2005 3:26:13 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

Since (government) worked pretty well before dereg. It was adequate before the change in regulation. I'm not sure I would say it worked well. In any case if the government makes one mistake in regulation (which it did) it can certainly make others. Do you not suppose it would work with healthcare? A well designed set of regulations would work better than a horrible crazy plan that gets called deregulation but isn't (like the CA electricity plan). But it probably would not work as well as a free market. In electricity distribution there is some very disputable but not totally unreasonable claims made that there is a natural monopoly which either has to be strongly regulated or at least have the market carefully structured by government regulation, and then competition can work within that structure. I've never heard or read a reasonable claim that medical care was a natural monopoly. I don't even think the fans of socialized medicine use that argument, nor do I think it is a reasonable one to use. I guess you pay quite a bit for your auto insurance:) Its hard to say what "a lot" is. I don't think I pay a ton. But I'd have to have a reason to post in on the internet. If the rates are regulated the price I pay could of course go down. Depending on exactly how it is regulated it might be in my narrow self interest to support such a scheme. However being in my narrow self interest is not assured, and even if it is in my self interest it doesn't automatically mean it is a good thing. Generally price controls are a bad thing. Frequently they are very bad. They are not so bad when the market price falls within the legal range of prices, but in those cases the price controls don't really reduce the price. Other reason why Canadian insurance might be cheaper is if their tort system is apparently not as out of control. This contains the real costs for insurance, it is not just an imposed price control. To the extent that Canada does have a better tort system then Canada does have at least on advantage that will help contain insurance, and other costs. Tim