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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeff Hayden who wrote (130504)	2/8/2010 8:57:07 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 541961

"Why not, it makes most other things more efficient." Most? I know of very few examples of military spending being made cheaper and better by competition. What an odd example to use. Military spending is government spending, with a monopsony buyer, and at least for some items very limited competition of the supplier side. Its not an example with much competition. Unfortunately its not an area where its easy to add a lot of competition, on either the buyer or seller side. Fortunately, unlike with medical care, the cost is declining over time as a percentage of GDP. But that declining is from smaller militaries over time, not from greater efficiency in providing this sector with goods and services. Look instead at how electronics have improved, and often gone down in costs. Or look at the improvements in cars and aircraft over time. Or if you want to look at necessities, than look at the way food variety has increased while food spending has declined greatly as percentage of the average or median income. I'm at least slightly open to the idea that health insurance is somehow different, that competition fails to work here the way it works in most of our economy, but that's a pretty extreme statement, it should require a lot of evidence to back it up. The advantage of insurance company competition in providing health care is not obvious to anyone. If you have competition, you have choice, if the service or price is better with one company over another, than if your buying your own insurance policy, or if your a corporate benefits administrator buying one for a company, you can go with that choice (or perhaps go with both and let your employees choose).