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

To: Bread Upon The Water who wrote (131636)	2/26/2010 6:02:18 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 541326

If you think of health care as a utility the monopoly situation works. I think it works for some things, not for others. I'm content with my electric supply. That's a classic candidate for a utility. If Ma Bell were still a utility, though, we'd still be using dial phones and you and I would not have this playground. Comcast's local monopoly raised my costs from $6 a month to $150. Yes, I get more for my money but it's still a huge increase. Meanwhile clothing prices have gone down. Monopolies may have been needed to get communities wired but now prices are better in communities with competition. So I think that monopoly utilities have their place but I struggle to apply that paradigm to health care. As a general rule, if you want good service and competitive prices, monopoly isn't the best path.