Dude, get over yourself. Who appointed you the den mother?

And guys, let's look at ourselves for a moment. Muirgeo makes a post that contains definite assertions and makes definite arguments. These are things that can be responded to in a productive way that leaves us all more knowledgeable for participating in the discussion. However, that's not what you're doing. You're all engaging in the 'gang' behavior that other political groups use to intimidate and drive out dissent. Are libertarians really going to be known as just another group looking for power? I'll step up to the plate on this one, since everybody else seems happy to just swing their bats at muir from the dugout.

“On what basis! On what basis?”

The basis of sound understanding of economics. Raising regulatory compliance costs, setting artificial limits on supply, manipulating relative prices in health care related industries, and a whole host of other policies that liberals and libertarians want to be rid of are almost all already part of an age old mythos of failed government policies. Price controls don't work. Supply constrictions just decrease availability and raise prices. Demand supports do the same thing.

Getting rid of the existing tax 'credit' to group insurance policies would be an excellent return to private-payer health care, which I hope you'll understand is a good thing for price control. Just like we're not experiencing crisis level tire price inflation, the market, when left free to innovate and produce, is pretty good about providing us what we want within the limitations of factor availability. You see this in tires, as I mentioned, you see it in cars, in food, in everything. Capitalism works wonderfully for everything, why should we be expecting it to be different with health care?

Ending the AMA's strange-hold on medical licensing or, even more radically, getting rid of license requires to practice medicine would be an instant supply side stimulus to health capital availability. Yes, there'd no doubt be some quacks who show up and do something very stupid that will probably result in many un-suspecting people experiencing suffering. But we've already got a corrective mechanism for this! Medical malpractice insurance is one of the biggest fixed costs doctors face, and that would change simply because there were many more doctors. The number of malpractice law suits would go up in time with the number of quacks and charlatans.

These and other changes that liberals/libertarians propose are almost all aimed at arresting the rise in health care costs and even reversing it. The idea is that we don't need the government stepping in and helping the poor, we can do it ourselves (although I've never heard of a sane libertarian proposing getting rid of Medicaid immediately). Lower the cost of health care, free people up to experiment with a million different forms of insurance (some corporate, some communal, etc), and health care will once more be abundantly available.

Dude, get over yourself. Who appointed you the den mother?

And guys, let's look at ourselves for a moment. Muirgeo makes a post that contains definite assertions and makes definite arguments. These are things that can be responded to in a productive way that leaves us all more knowledgeable for participating in the discussion. However, that's not what you're doing. You're all engaging in the 'gang' behavior that other political groups use to intimidate and drive out dissent. Are libertarians really going to be known as just another group looking for power? I'll step up to the plate on this one, since everybody else seems happy to just swing their bats at muir from the dugout.

“On what basis! On what basis?”

The basis of sound understanding of economics. Raising regulatory compliance costs, setting artificial limits on supply, manipulating relative prices in health care related industries, and a whole host of other policies that liberals and libertarians want to be rid of are almost all already part of an age old mythos of failed government policies. Price controls don't work. Supply constrictions just decrease availability and raise prices. Demand supports do the same thing.

Getting rid of the existing tax 'credit' to group insurance policies would be an excellent return to private-payer health care, which I hope you'll understand is a good thing for price control. Just like we're not experiencing crisis level tire price inflation, the market, when left free to innovate and produce, is pretty good about providing us what we want within the limitations of factor availability. You see this in tires, as I mentioned, you see it in cars, in food, in everything. Capitalism works wonderfully for everything, why should we be expecting it to be different with health care?

Ending the AMA's strange-hold on medical licensing or, even more radically, getting rid of license requires to practice medicine would be an instant supply side stimulus to health capital availability. Yes, there'd no doubt be some quacks who show up and do something very stupid that will probably result in many un-suspecting people experiencing suffering. But we've already got a corrective mechanism for this! Medical malpractice insurance is one of the biggest fixed costs doctors face, and that would change simply because there were many more doctors. The number of malpractice law suits would go up in time with the number of quacks and charlatans.

These and other changes that liberals/libertarians propose are almost all aimed at arresting the rise in health care costs and even reversing it. The idea is that we don't need the government stepping in and helping the poor, we can do it ourselves (although I've never heard of a sane libertarian proposing getting rid of Medicaid immediately). Lower the cost of health care, free people up to experiment with a million different forms of insurance (some corporate, some communal, etc), and health care will once more be abundantly available.

I would suspect that Europe has not had the sort of widespread housing collapse because they don't have the a European eqivellent of the fannie mae FHA CRA etc.. They have the free market we have a housing policy that goal is to increase demand for housing through government intervention.

I would suspect that Europe has not had the sort of widespread housing collapse because they don't have the a European eqivellent of the fannie mae FHA CRA etc.. They have the free market we have a housing policy that goal is to increase demand for housing through government intervention.

Re: Private enterprise: Far from a perfect system – Nov 16

Mr. Steinman's critique of the free market and his argument for increased government intervention is hardly supported by his examples of bureaucratic efficiency. Medicare – bleeding red ink and soon to be bankrupt; Social security – a Ponzi scheme also sliding fast into bankruptcy; and USPS – in a word, “broke.” But somehow Mr. Steinman finds no fault with bankrupt bureaucracies kept on life-support through the forced confiscation of earnings of taxpaying Americans. It’s appears that only “free-market” bankruptcies are intolerable.

Yes, in a free market some companies will falter and fail. That’s how resources are re-directed from poor utilization to more productive management. But, until we climbed in bed with GM, no citizen was forced to invest in or purchase products from these failing companies. One cannot say the same about the government blunders mentioned above.

Re: Private enterprise: Far from a perfect system – Nov 16

Mr. Steinman's critique of the free market and his argument for increased government intervention is hardly supported by his examples of bureaucratic efficiency. Medicare – bleeding red ink and soon to be bankrupt; Social security – a Ponzi scheme also sliding fast into bankruptcy; and USPS – in a word, “broke.” But somehow Mr. Steinman finds no fault with bankrupt bureaucracies kept on life-support through the forced confiscation of earnings of taxpaying Americans. It’s appears that only “free-market” bankruptcies are intolerable.

Yes, in a free market some companies will falter and fail. That’s how resources are re-directed from poor utilization to more productive management. But, until we climbed in bed with GM, no citizen was forced to invest in or purchase products from these failing companies. One cannot say the same about the government blunders mentioned above.

Unlike the world of political states that have never brought harm to any human being!

YASAFI!

Every now and then, you get something correct.

See: Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, etc…

No you don't my little teacup Chihuahua, there is no evidence over the last 2.5 years that you think.

The language change merely reflects the cultural change.

I personally do not think it is good for the individual to drift away from self responsibility. I personally don't think it is good for the nation as a whole to have created a system, to have allowed a system to be created, whereby clients (read patients) no longer feel obligated to review costs, charges, and get the best deal they can from their healthcare provider.