~$500m in lobbying from "Big Health"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/01/lobbyists-millions-obama-healthcare-reform

USD1.5m directly given to the chairman of the senate committee drafting the law?! 6 lobbyists for EACH member of Congress?!

amazing

I dont have a particularly high opinion of 'democracy' in the US anyway but this is a new level of retarded.

I think America has become totally corrupt. Democracy + Capitalism = Corporatism. It's just far more extreme in America, due to the concentration of power.

It's called Rent Seeking in Neo Classical economics by the way:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_seeking

what would you suggest instead of democracy? (because I actually rather like democracy, as opposed to simply universal suffrage)



so what's your suggestion

capitalism + ???? = ?????

I think decentralization of power or subsidiarity is maybe the only way to go. It doesn't prevent it, but it makes it more apparent and people might be able to do something about it.

so a situation like somalia?

Must decentralization or subsidiarity = Somalia?

must socialism = new harmony or the USSR?

Depends on your definition of socialism.

However free market socialism will = New Harmony, Authoritarian socialism will = USSR

However Subsidiarity will not in all cases = Somalia.

Nice try though.

Depends how you define Subsidiarity.

I'm going to say you're wrong.

Nice try though.

See we can both play that game.

You're the one attempting to make Subsidiarity = Somalia, if that isn't a game induced by petty bourgeoisie guilt, I don't know what is? Subsidiarity can only be defined one specific way, where as Socialism can be defined many different ways. There are significant differences no mater how much you try and make them similar.

Now go back to your Chardonnay.

I'm just playing your game.

If there is a game, you are not doing a very good job at playing it.

Use a better example.

gentlemen, draw your weapons

I saw a doco on this topic last night. It showed the stuff which Medicare pays for and how they overpay by sometimes 400%... A basic wheelchair can easily be bought for US$1000.. but they usually pay over $4000. An oxygen tank/regulator thing for home use, is $900, but they pay over $2700.

And why?.. because the repeated attempts to have small test communities where all purchasing must be competitively bid for have all been rebuked by congress. All logic and indications point to it being a sound idea but it keeps getting shot down for no reason at all (at least publicly) basically because it suits medical organisation to lobby to prevent competitive bidding. It is actually cheaper to lobby. It's a disgrace when you think about and relies on the average person taking the "it's so complex that I trust they have it under control and operate in the best interests of all".... What a deluded lot!

Hence why Obama is pushing the: we can fund our plans by better controlling the waste within the existing system. He is partly right no doubt - whether he can find whatever the figure is - $90bn? - or not is another story.

Agree Rob, rent seeking is typically self interested behavior and is not limited just to corporations, although they are typically the biggest offenders. Re American healthcare, while many commentators have been quick to blame the "free market" for the high costs in the American private healthcare system, excessive costs are not actually the fault of the "free market", so to speak. So why doesn't private insurance provide affordable, secure coverage that customers want? Invariably, the problem resides amongst a number of specific government policies, which protect insurance companies from competition and ensure large windfall profits.

Consider the following: in a truly free market, insurance companies would compete for every last customer, but in America’s case the insurance companies sell policies to business owners rather than individual employees. Why is this, one may wonder? It's because unless workers surrender their earnings and coverage decisions to their employer, the federal government hits them with a tax penalty.

This tax penalty is due to the fact, Americans must use their after-tax income, to buy individual polices (as opposed to the before-tax paycheck deductions, employers make to pay for coverage). This policy has resulted in insurance providers, only needing to compete for business owners rather than individual customers, and once a business is secured by a provider, the company essentially has guaranteed revenue.

The fact most health insurance disappears at the moment people most need it (when they lose their jobs) is just one indication the system is rigged to serve someone other than the employees. But this is just one issue in the debacle, there are in fact a number of different government polices, we could focus on and discuss: consider: 1) guaranteed issues, 2) community ratings, 3) mandated coverage, 4) state protected monopolies and the already discussed 5) employer-provided health insurance.

You can read more on this here: http://mises.org/story/3727

Whats interesting is that many countries outside of America (including New Zealand) actually benefit from America's private healthcare system. This is because we import a lot of the latest technology created from their companies, which despite being protected from competition, are still more innovative than the public sector. It might be in our best interest that America keeps a private healthcare system...

do you have references to anything other than mises?

their writing is terribly dogmatic

It depends on the author, I have noticed the quality of their articles improving especially over the last year. I suspect graduates from their summer school university might be contributing.

Anyway, that article was just to give a general overview of the polices, describing them in an easy to understand format. I have actually used some of the commentary to do my own research.

Another good source I have used is the Cato Institute, they have a number of PDF docs on the subject. For a quick guide, try: http://healthcare.cato.org/

Worth Reading

http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v31n5/cpr31n5-3.pdf

Acrobat Reader required