Does strikebreaking fall under 'asset protection', I wonder?

Untreated dental problems can (and do) lead to really expensive ER visits when things get out of hand, also end up leading to a lot of people getting narcotics and eventually a subset getting addicted. Having a molar removed is probably one of the cheapest healthcare interventions around.

It is a really good symptom of how weird some Americans view healthcare where getting cavities filled and problem molars removed is seen as an extravagant luxury because it doesnt (it does) create long term savings.

Like somehow America is broke (it isnt) because people are getting some minor dental work performed via a publicly funded healthcare provider.

This makes about as much sense as saying all criminal cases should be decided by a jury of cops.

Do you really see the world in such ridiculously black-and-white terms? You don't think it's possible that the government is more efficient at some things than the private sector but not others?

It's fairly obvious that government-run health insurance has some benefits that private health insurance can't possibly have:

1) No need to advertise.
2) Incredible power to negotiate.
3) Huge benefits from scaling.
4) Much lower salaries for executives.
5) No need to make a profit for shareholders.

Each one of those is a massive benefit.

The downside to government-run insurance is, of course, that the government tends to screw things up because it doesn't have to respond to market pressures like private companies. That's obviously not at all trivial, but it's not hard to imagine 1-5 outweighing that.

All of that doesn't even include the obvious fact that the government is interested in handling health care ethically, while private insurers are interested in making money.



Or, you know, you could just stick your fingers in your ears and repeatedly say that private enterprise is better than the government at everything.

The biggest one is that there isn't enough doctors in the US to take on a huge increase in patient load. Prepare to wait.

I don't think it is ridiculous in the least to assume that a government solution is going to be inefficient unless proven otherwise. Phil's post that I responded to asserted that you can logically reason that a government solution is better. That is certainly not the starting point I would suggest. Maybe the market for healthcare is broken and the outcomes are suboptimal due to an inefficient market. But history has indicated that you ought to start with the baseline that the market works best unless proven otherwise.
You can apply your 1-5 reasons for a government solution to every market. Given your baseline what market shouldn't be government controlled?

The business health care deduction and medicare is in effect government run health care. I hope Obamacare goes thorough. Unfortunately, Obama is a socialist/marxist and Romney works in the corrupt private equity industry.

1. Advertising is good, It forces people to print prices.
2. Look how the negotiated medicare worked out. It would work if they did something like the did in Taiwan or Japan.
3. There really is no scaling benefit. As you go to a doctor or small team of doctors and nurses.
4. That is somewhat true. Less salaries for executives, but higher salaries for union nurses and doctors.
5. We have non-profit and for-profit health care today. Prices are about the same at Kaiser (non-profit) or Wellpoint (for-profit). For profit, is forced to control costs.

No, it wasn't. Meant wisdom teeth. They were growing sideways into my other teeth. Had to be broken into little pieces. Then removed. Took months for my entire mouth to recover.

The increase in patient load will be a lot less than it seems - uninsured people still visited doctors - but it will be quickly fixed by the market.

Since the number of doctors in the market isn't actually controlled by the market (The AMA essentially controls this), this is just wrong. Not having a new medical school get accredited between the 80s and 2010 is going to be a problem. Not to mention their aren't enough residency slots either.

And oh, that's some ****ing bull**** of a handwave philliam for several other reasons. Obamacare will save money because more people will get preventative care, but the fact that there simply aren't enough PCPs for the patient load we have now won't be a problem because not that many more people will go.

Please. Obvious contradiction is obvious.

How does this then not apply to every industry?

Administrative costs of Medicare is estimated at about 3%. Fraud is 20% and rising. 20,000 new providers added monthly. No one checking on the legitimacy of any of these new providers. A lot harder to commit fraud against private insurers.

I would still appreciate any answers to the questions I asked above, or at least an explanation as to why they're bad questions.