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

To: Road Walker who wrote (24238)	7/17/2012 7:32:23 PM
From: TimF	2 Recommendations Respond to of 42652

You believe in this mythical "free market" that doesn't exist. Message 28271032 with these crazy hypotheticals No, with an understanding of the ways economies actually work. The most recent example that we were talking about, the idea that price ceilings cause shortage and/or other problems (if they are not so loose as do to essentially nothing), isn't a hypothetical. Its an observation of history that's been repeated again and again, from ancient Rome to FDR's and Nixon's price controls, to current anti-gouging laws in the US and wider price controls in some other nations. Humans have constructed a highly complex US medical system that doesn't work for many, and is obscenely expensive. So now we are replacing it with a more complex and more expensive system that also won't work well for many. We're moving forward with change. That's good. Change isn't good when the specific changes are poor.

To: Road Walker who wrote (24238)	7/17/2012 9:57:37 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

You and Lane are nuts. You believe in this mythical "free market" that doesn't exist. Huh? I questioned an assertion that set up the position presented in an article. The guy said something clearly incorrect. It's obvious that one way for a government to increase access to health care while reducing prices is to control prices. All government-run systems control prices. You'd have to live your life on the moon to not to recognize that. Public park systems control prices. Public utilities control prices. And they may also ration. Like, duh. The only way that his statement could be true would be if price controls were a conceptual component of rationing but that cannot be the case because rationing restricts the distribution of product, itself, while price controls limit the amount that the distributor can get for his product. They're quite different. Now, I don't know why the author ignored that and made such a statement but there was nothing political or ideological about my reaction to it. It's simply about systems and logic and accuracy. I responded, first of all, because bare premises bug me and I can't easily ignore them. Second, that the author would start out with a logical fallacy tends to call into question the point he was trying to make that derived from it, whatever it might have been. I admit I did not read the piece in its entirety given the unstable foundation he laid. I don't see how you can find any belief in any kind of economic system in my comments. Or any value judgment about the use of price controls or rationing for that matter. Surely you realize that price controls and rationing are available and oft-used tools for any such system. At least the ones that don't go bankrupt. Now, if you disagree that public systems have price controls and rationing as available tools or that price controls and rationing are not distinct concepts, perhaps you'd argue that rather than just fuss about the ideology you are inferring.