Economics Questions

Re: Freemarket Healthcare

eliotn — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 20:26:03 GMT

Its ok to ask that here. The problem here is that the proposal forces people to choose a health insurance program approved by the government, even if they don't want it, and can be used to control medicine any way the government wants, because the government can define what is and isn't insurance. True, insurance companies might compete for customers, but in the sense of it being a quasi-monopoly, similar to how other regulations, like tariffs, restrict other firms from a particular market. Also, these insurance companies have no incentive to cut costs, unlike real insurance, because the payments don't come from the people actually buying insurance. Even if people were forced to pay for it themselves, they don't have a choice to abstain from it.

What there is nothing wrong with is people trying to offer a similar system or trying to pool healthcare costs (hello mutual aid societies). The key thing that differentiates this (and makes it compatible with liberterian philosophy) from a system like government healthcare is the voluntarism of it.

Re: Freemarket Healthcare

Penguin — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 05:33:40 GMT

Thanks guys, Is there any thing wrong with having competing insurance companys, but have the state force every one to pay a tax, and pick a insurance company? I'd suppose there are but, I can not think of any( I do not know if I should create new forum or use this one, sorry.)

Re: Freemarket Healthcare

Wheylous — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 03:10:20 GMT

Healthcare:

http://candlemind.com/projects/progclub/file/michael/getEducated.php?listID=29

The second and third links are good:

http://mises.org/daily/5496

and

http://mises.org/daily/6014

Essentially, half of all healthcare is paid for by the govt. This makes it way expensive.

Re: Freemarket Healthcare

SkepticalMetal — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 23:49:00 GMT

Welcome to the forum!

I'll be John James here for a sec by linking you here:

The Healthcare Argument

Re: Freemarket Healthcare

Rodolphe Topffer — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 23:24:53 GMT

Like I said before (in this thread) :

Given that economic freedom enhances economic growth, this means that we are becoming richer than before. Prices would decline as a result of productivity gains. This means that people have also more money to spend on everything else, including healthcare. Healthcare would be more accessible to poor and rich people. By the same token, if welfare state hampers growth, people would have less money to spend on everything, including healthcare. By the way...

Concerning inequality, I could recommend this article, by Charles Murray.

The New American Divide

Why have these new lower and upper classes emerged? For explaining the formation of the new lower class, the easy explanations from the left don't withstand scrutiny. It's not that white working class males can no longer make a "family wage" that enables them to marry. The average male employed in a working-class occupation earned as much in 2010 as he did in 1960. It's not that a bad job market led discouraged men to drop out of the labor force. Labor-force dropout increased just as fast during the boom years of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s as it did during bad years.

As I've argued in much of my previous work, I think that the reforms of the 1960s jump-started the deterioration. Changes in social policy during the 1960s made it economically more feasible to have a child without having a husband if you were a woman or to get along without a job if you were a man; safer to commit crimes without suffering consequences; and easier to let the government deal with problems in your community that you and your neighbors formerly had to take care of.

But, for practical purposes, understanding why the new lower class got started isn't especially important. Once the deterioration was under way, a self-reinforcing loop took hold as traditionally powerful social norms broke down. Because the process has become self-reinforcing, repealing the reforms of the 1960s (something that's not going to happen) would change the trends slowly at best.

Finally, you could also read "How American Health Care Killed My Father".

Freemarket Healthcare

Penguin — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 21:42:56 GMT

Hey I'm new, so sorry if I do a lot of stuff wrong, but I was wondering if you fine people could help me when I debate supporters of universal healthcare. The main problem I have is that they say that people who are born poor can not afford healthcare and will die, and that charity can not support them all, is there any way I can defeat this argument? Thank you very much!