Here's the interesting part of the story, the parents want their son on a private insurance plan and they say that, "Medicaid would be a 'death sentence' for their son". They also note that government medical programs don't provide the medical care that their son needs.

So the answer is that we need to more toward more government involvement; the same government that isn't providing care now is supposed to provide the care at some point in the future. To be honest, with medical costs in the $1 million/year range, the only way the insurance company can cover this type of customer is because they have a lot of healthy young policyholders that don't submit a lot of claims (these are the same healthy policyholders that current "reform" plans in Congress seem destined to chase out of the insurance market).

If there is a case for government involvement in healthcare, it is situations like this. There may be an opportunity to spread the costs of a high risk pool nationally (so that a single insurance company doesn't have to bear the costs) with some government subsidy. Solutions like insuring insurability risk is another market-based solution as well. But the larger question is why we should we believe that a government that isn't providing care under the programs that proponents of "reform" extol as "models" of government involvement, would some how perform better in the future.

I think the writer was talking about our intentions in Iraq, as opposed to what really is ending up happening. It's still being decided who will end up with the contracts if I understand it right.

A single payer for physician and hospital is much more efficient in Canada, most physicians and surgeons are in private practice, most, though not all, hospitals are owned by the government. Universal healthcare in Canada, and in many EU countries, (there are many different structures to provide it), has basic government coverage: medical, surgical, and hospital care. And some services are free to low income and provided by employers through private insurers (dental, eyeglasses,etc). Nursing homes are both non-profit and for-profit, with monthly co-pays depending on income and assets, same for home-care, but fees would seem very small compared to the U.S. Democratic-Socialist parties are voted in and out of government in Canada and Europe, and all have some government-owned corporations, at least the post-office!

Don't forget that capitalism is all about control of means of production, not necessarily the direct control of the products themselves.

"It still goes on - like in Iraq. Today's wars or occupations are about Resources"

Seriously? What resources have we gotten in Iraq. Where is all the oil that we supposedly went in there for?

Apparently you’ve been euphemized. The propaganda machine got ya. The meanings of words have been changed, and therefore, the merits and faults of ideas have become murky. Please allow me to explain.

Your distaste of “for profit” insurance companies is no doubt caused by what you’re seeing around us. And I’m with ya. I hate to see corporations making OBSCENE profits by ignoring/causing suffering…especially when the purpose of their contracts (in the customer's mind), the very reason for their existence, is to ease suffering. This is indeed evil. But what exactly is it that makes this kind of evil possible?

What you’re seeing in America’s healthcare system today (and over the last 50 years) is a cross between fascism and socialism. It is not capitalism, and capitalism is not the only ideology that requires profits.

In a fascist system, gov't conspires with industry, creating laws (regulation) that essentially help them stamp out competition. Gov’t officials enjoy the bribe money from the lobbyists and corporations enjoy a competitive edge over their competition. Over time, the little companies die off, leaving only the big, impersonal companies, who increasingly gain a monopoly. Once this happens, indeed, even before this happens, the customer is no longer in the driver’s seat. Prices will most certainly rise and quality of service will fall.

The public, naturally, doesn’t like what they see. So gov’t blames it on the greedy corporations. They use villainize terms like “capitalism” and “for profit,” and they suggest a gov’t takeover of the industry. And this, of course, is full blown socialism. If the public is sufficiently miseducated, unable to see through the deception, they’ll fall for it. As socialism replaces fascism, the downhill slide continues. Quality most certainly will continue going down, maybe even faster than before. The service provided appears to be free, since people don’t pay when receiving service and certainly don't make full account of their tax dollars. But the taxes required to support a fully socialist system becomes enormously more than the premiums it would take to support an equivalent private system...even a fascist system. At some point, the system will cave in on itself, intensifying the suffering of the people even more.

You speak of “for profit” as though there are only two choices: “for profit” and “not for profit.” But here's the deal: Fascist corporations aren’t “for profit.” They want obscene profits. What you're seeing around you shouldn't be blamed on capitalism, but on fascism.

If we had lots of competitive "for profit" companies, profits would actually be held much lower while quality would be sustained at a higher level. Insurance companies like Guardian Life would never gamble with their customer base by doing what Guardian Life did. But since Guardian Life is so huge, and since competition has, to a large degree, been eliminated. They can afford to take a gamble. Worse case scenario for them: they get a bunch of unwanted media attention and are forced to reverse their decision. Their other customers, the ones who are paying attention and see what's going on, really have no where to run anyway.

only probl;em is when government rules or is the tail that wags the dog as you say, your freedoms are lost. It is much much harder to change who is in control when you have government making the rules,and corrupt politions running the show. at least in what we have we can fix it by getting good politions in power. Did you know that there are MORE lobbyist now then when bush was in power. Do you now how much of our stimulus money went to those companies whom a lot of current polititions are involved in some way or another. So I dont think a government run health system whom is run by corrupt politions is going to work.

"and that public pressure, backed up by concern that the company might lose customers, led the company to reverse itself."

That's true with most free enterprises. However, the health insurance companies were made exempt from anti-trust provisions. So they have banded together into a health care monopoly cartel; I'm sure that Guardian consulted with the cartel before making its decision -- I doubt that the cartel wanted that much negative publicity right before the key votes for health care reform.

As I understand, most of the health care bills contain revocations of this exemption. This is very important so that we can have a true free market, which we don't have under the current system.

I agree that it's not a perfect free market by any stretch of the imagination. However, we do still enter into (some) transactions willingly, even though the prices are meddled with. Unlike the USSR, prices are not (typically) fixed, but they are limited by maximum or minimum.

The main thing I wanted to deny is that free market theory is a myth... I don't think Allen was getting at that, but I thought it was too easy to misinterpret his post that way.

A very true and revealing quote. Political euphemism is attempting to redefine capitalism to mean fascism.

We've got to fight back first by recognizing fascism when we see it. Capitalism is indeed "for profit." Fascism is all about obscene profits for a few huge insurance companies, banks, etc...at the expense of the masses, of course.

Check out this article:
http://mises.org/story/3793

I agree with what you say about the tail wagging the dog. The corporations are running the gov't. It's a cozy relationship for corrupt gov't officials.

I also agree that a severe house-cleaning, on the level of a revolution, is the only way to fix the problems we face. The politicians are much more responsive to industry lobbyists than to voters.

The idea that "gov't run health care and other social programs run just fine all over the world" is a product of gov't-pushed propaganda. And in cases where gov't-run systems do indeed appear to be working, just hang around and watch for a few decades. The snapshot you saw initially will change for the worse. We need a system that tends to improve itself rather than tending to grow more corrupt over time. A free market system is just that. You may disagree with this idea now, but consider the fact that what we have now really isn't free market, but a cross between fascism and socialism. Once we understand what we've been seeing, it helps us point the blame in the right direction and start seeing solutions where we saw none before.

Gov't run anything will always become more and more inefficient, ultimately resulting in unbearable costs for the serfs. Why? Because gov't has no motivation to be efficient. In fact, gov't has strong, continuous motivation to become more and more inefficient. If you've ever worked in gov't, you'll know what I mean. On the other hand, with sufficient competition in a FREE market (which we haven't had for well over a century), businesses respond to profit (or lack thereof) to make themselves more attractive to their customers.

The reason our system is so expensive now is due to lack of competition. Insurance companies have become too large and impersonal to be responsible/responsive to their customers. The reason we have a lack of competition is because industry lobbyists have bribed gov't to conspire with them to stomp out the competition. Once the competition is gone, prices always go up and up and up while quality goes down.

I totally agree with what you said about the bailout.

What has been called "deregulation" is really no such thing. More study is needed in this area to see through the propaganda they want you to believe.

It is an interesting fact that industry always plays a hand in creating "regulation." They write their own rules. In fact, industry and special interests are most often the ones pushing for "regulation."

The greedy little foxes (private interests/corporations) would be unable to do what they do without the assistance of gov't. Greed cannot be avoided. It can only be balanced with competition.

The problem comes when private interests/corporations hire lobbyists to get gov't to cooperate with them in suffocating out the competition. Once the competition is gone, profits rise, both for industry and corrupt gov't officials who accept bribes.

If you've ever tried doing business in an industry that has lots of competition, you know that profits are small. Why? Because the competition keeps it that way.

It's not that the rules and laws go out the window, but that loop holes are created at the request of lobbyists.

...which is exactly why we need to end the Fed, return to a standard of hard money, and get the ruling political elite out of our lives, our pocketbooks, and have real reform in the United States. Health care costs way too much because of government already. And somehow government gets to be the solution? How upside down is that!?

What proof do you have that capitalism doesn't work? As I pointed out in another previous post to you, there is no "proof of failure," only proof that it has worked.

If you want regulation, you'd advocate a gold standard, because with a gold standard, there'd be no need for a central bank cartel, and with no central bank cartel, there'd be no "lender of last resort" to bailout banks who make horrible decisions... which in turns means fewer horrible decisions! Imagine that... no incentive to take excessive risks (a.k.a. become really greedy at other peoples' expense)! I'm with you on "regulation," but who gets to decide what regulation will work? What happens if they're wrong? We just elect new fallen humans who have their own careers in mind? Give me a break!

What is your proof that we are "in the mess today" because of free trade and deregulation? What economic research and studies have you done to prove such a theory? Or is it just popular mythology that the free market produced this scenario?

Any sense of basic economics tells us that a recession is a correction. The market is indeed succeeding because it is spewing out toxic assets. Government and Fed collusion into the market has caused all of this trouble. That is certainly not a free market (read my post here on the illusion of the free market. Just like the body vomits unwanted and harmful "stuff," so does the market. Our economy was built on false prosperity, and the only cure for it is a recession. Nobody calls it a body failure when they throw up. It's actually a sign that the body is doing exactly what it was meant to do.

“As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.” Gore Vidal -

'The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return.” Gore Vidal

It makes no difference who you vote for - the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people -- Gore Vidal
(Author, Play Write, father was Senator at one time, political critic).

"If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged. "
Noam Chomsky

---think about it ---- Peace

We need SINGLE PAYER period! Lets join the rest of the industrialized nations already...We rank 37 amongst the nations for decent quality health care and insurance coverage...
The problem is DEREGULATION not regulation. I am not against profit - All European Democratic Socialist nations and Canada have corporations that make profit....it is the system of Capitalism that ultimately doesn't work.