Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Road Walker who wrote (24346)	7/25/2012 3:48:21 PM
From: Brumar89	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

No, they didn't. Because the government wasn't that big back then. A lot of people thought the Interstates were excessive, a lot of people thought NASA was excessive, a lot of people thought the railroads were excessive, a lot of people thought the National Parks were excessive. I was alive when the interestates were still being built and NASA was trying to send men to the moon. No one objected.

To: Road Walker who wrote (24346)	7/25/2012 4:01:55 PM
From: Lane3	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

The problem is, with government or private companies, that you don't know if they'll work until you try them. Not always, but much if not most of the time. That's why we do feasibility studies. Some things that won't work are obvious if you just do a mental model. Other things you can predict whether they are likely or unlikely to work. You use past experience and logic to develop rationales. The world wasn't created today. We don't need to start from scratch and give it the old college try. (With the exception of the wise folks on this thread that are 100% positive that Obama Care won't work). There are elements of it that are so blatantly obvious that you'd have to be using wishful thinking or have checked your brain at the door to think that they will work. When private companies do things that don't work, they pay the price, at least they do when the government doesn't override the risks, and some other company that does it right prevails. When government thing don't work, we either don't evaluate them so we don't have to acknowledge that they don't work, blame something or somebody else, or re-jigger the objectives. Then we prop them up throwing good effort and money after bad. Nothing ever gets redone or abandoned.

To: Road Walker who wrote (24346)	7/28/2012 3:10:00 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Respond to of 42652

you don't know if they'll work until you try them A lot in Obamacare, and in other big proposals for government programs, has already been tried, at least the general type of thing has been tried and in some cases the specific ideas have been. We know that extensive coverage requirements and limitations (in some cases out right prohibition) of co-pays and deductibles increases costs. We know that tons of new laws and new regulations and extending government control, limits the scope for people to try new things by imposing a centralized solution. There may be some good in the law, some benefits from it that come as it gets implemented, but the benefits would come with a high cost, both in dollar terms, and in restriction on the ability to try new things that depart from the Obamacare plan.