quickest AC (by a non acist obv) hijack in recent history?

Firm C?

For one, I think you are seriously under-estimating how much capital and man-power "taking all of their clients stuff" would entail. For evidence, see the latest efforts by very "rich" nations to try and control very "poor" nations.

Also, consider the time line you are proposing: Firm A starts, firm A grows by providing better better/more efficient protection, hires more people, continues to grow and develop recognition in the community, people enjoy their service, so they grow more and hire more people....then, one day, they just steal everyone's **** and sell them to slavery?!?!

About 35% of what we spend according to Lou Dobbs. Think the Japanese are more willing to seek low tech cures. Herbs instead of prescription drugs. Exercise.
The vocal minority keeps adding more and more procedures to the health insurance policies, forcing the majority to share the cost.

Sorry, I should have put this in another thread.

All those extra visits probably help with preventative medicine.

Pharma companies can't directly market to Japanese consumers also, iirc.

They probably also actually negotiate for lower drug prices instead of giving handouts.

They also have magical robots heal people instead of highly trained doctors.

Just a few reasons, most likely.

Firms C, D, E, F, G etcetc exist to stop that.

Furthermore, such security firms would not have the illusion of legitimacy that would enable them to partake in such an action without massive resistance, making it extremely unpopular, and even more importantly, ultimately impossible.


As is always said about ACism, but, more as it was always said about Republics, in days after the American Revolution, a "virtuous" people is required to keep tyranny at bay. If the people are educated as to what liberty is, both ACism and Constitutionally limited Republic are possible. Once the effort to educate is given up, ACism, or limited government, will fail to work.

such a firm doesn't exist...that stops me, but, regardless, read the stuff I wrote in this post.


please don't apologize for the hijack, a discussion on ACism is way more ****ing interesting than another behemoth thread of morons arguing about healthcare, most of them trolling about it, actually.

Alright guys dumb question from smb time:

What would the effect of eliminating health insurance completely be?

How do you propose to do this, spaceman bryce? The means are pretty important here, if we want to talk consequences.

I don't beleive it should be done, I was talking to my liberal friend who does.
He was like
"Look bryce, the insurance company is ultimately just a middle man. It's like if you want to go into a grocery store and before you go in you have to pay a man to go into the grocery store and buy your groceries for you. They don't actually provide you with anything."

I realize how ******ed this is but I just wanted to discuss what would happen if we just eliminated health insurance companies..

Most people would be unaffected for the most part, with the exception of prices dropping due to comparison shopping people would have. You'd really screw people over who have catastrophic and expensive procedures. They either would get them and go bankrupt, some form of charity would exist for them, the government would pay for it, or some combination of the above.

This doesn't neccessarily sound that bad to me... I need to go look up some things. For instance, how much of the total cost of health care falls under "catastrophic" healthcare.

What do you all think of Olympia Snowe's "trigger idea," which may be getting a more serious, second-look now?

Basically, she favors a public option only if the reforms to the private insurance industry did not provide adequate savings.

This approach sounds reasonable to me, except I'd be worried about whether the process of determining savings would be rife with accounting mischief.

Is it really possible to come up with a coherent way of figuring out what amount of savings should be met, and then a coherent way of measuring to see whether such savings actually have occurred?

I would wager quite a lot of it is. A premature baby may cost upwards of a million dollars to take care of. Major heart surgeries, etc... can all cost 10s of thousands. Suppose the average typical amount spent on health care was $5,000 (probably a high estimate). If 1/50 people needed a major event (say its $50k), and 1/1000 people need a super major event (say $1,000,000), the total cost for 1,000 people would be $8.5M. So 42% would be the small stuff. I do know that employer sponsored plans can have a pretty significant impact by a handful of events for how much they spend on insurance.

However, if people shop around and consumer mechanisms are in place, the $5,000 probably drops considerably.

I don't understand why it's so difficult to understand. Total health care cost before insurance is X. Total health insurance is Y. Total health case cost is X + Y. If no one bought health insurance we would all save the Y. Health care would be less expensive.
In the sixties health care was about 5% of GDP. Then managed care was conceived. Now health care is about 17% of GDP. Eliminate the middlemen. Bring down the cost of health care.
Health insurance is the primary culprit in the spiraling cost of health care. Therefore any workable alternative system can not be based on insurance. The congress should only be looking for ways to provide health care for the uninsured inexpensively, not looking for ways to force the uninsured to purchase health insurance.

For 47 million Americans there is no health insurance. Most doctors won't see them. They mostly just do without.

doesn't really answer the question. if doctors refused to see people without insurance when no insurance existed for anyone, doctors wouldn't really see anyone. so the question is, what would happen.

I expect you'd see costs come down. But, its such a complicated issue, who the **** knows, and thats why its best to avoid any sort of legislation at all.

Today it's difficult to find a doctor without insurance. Fifty years when few people had insurance, it was easy to see doctors(without insurance).

yeah they also didn't have cat scans and all kinds of other incredibly expensive medical technology 50 years ago either

Clearly we should make fire insurance illegal too. They're just a middle man. I don't need that ****, my house has never burned down.

People would likely form co-ops to cover group members in case of catastrophic problems. Which hopefully would not be illegal under a no insurance policy. However, like most co-ops it would be run poorly and likely be filled with waste and poorly administered.

Also, the govt would just start covering everyone

Are you talking about the way protection and courts currently work?

I see nothing wrong with universal care. Or single payer. Although I don't like Obamas plan, seems the public option is not bad. Offers more choice. We spend 3X most countries, and live less so Obamas plan must be an improvement. No brainer Fox is against it because they are in bed with health care and are in love with their wallet and power. I will probably sign up 1st week if plan is not too expensive.

Why "must" it be an improvement? That's pretty dangerous just to assume so.

*assuming no health insurance and no government help*
I think you would have a massively sick population. People would ignore their health problems until they grow to much harder to treat and hence much more expensive levels. The economy would suffer, a sick population is not a productive population.
This doesn't say as much about your healthcare system as it does about the lifestyle choices of Americans in comparison to other countries.