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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: neolib who wrote (216044)	2/2/2007 7:07:07 PM
From: Katelew	Respond to of 281500

No more so than any other life critical goods and services. Look at the aircraft industry, or airline service. Things like fake components (lower quality materials, lower cost) do exist and are a threat, but you deal with the problem in other ways. You don't use that as an excuse to say the government should run a single national airline, and it should be non-profit. I think you make a valid observation here, and there are those who also worry about competition among carriers affecting the quality of routine maintenance. Personally, I'm disinclined to favor nationalizing American industries and only recently grew to believe that healthcare is probably an exception so I see no need in this country to even consider airlines or telecom, etc. As far as stifling innovation goes, that would still take place, I would think. The govt. is just the payer of the bills. Innovation comes from the arena of doctors, hospitals, drug dev. companies, etc. As it stands now, Medicare is continually adding to the list of things it will reimburse for as new procedures and equipment are developed.

To: neolib who wrote (216044)	2/2/2007 9:27:22 PM
From: geode00	Respond to of 281500

"How good would our technology be today, and what cost would service come at, if America had nationalized telephone service for the last 4-5 decades?" Can you read your phone bill? Phone service SUCKS. How much do you have to pay to make a simple 411 call? Do you not remember Ma Bell? That was 30 years ago so we did have nationalized phone service within the last 4-5 decades. There are 150K military and 100K contractors in Iraq...more or less. Exactly who do you think has a better ROI for us? If you're going to be a capitalist then why not be a really good one?