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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

And the truth will set you free….

—think about it —- Peace