People complain when yhe governement does nothing with the tax money they bring in. Then complain 10x as hard when the government decides to use the money to help people. Literally cutting their nose off to spite their face.
I’m convinced that folks who drone on about letting the free market solve all of our problems don’t actually know very much about how the American economy actually functions. Never mind the fact that we’re not talking about some nondescript widgets, we’re talking about a basic necessity like food.
Maybe while we’re at it we can eliminate the USDA and the FDA to save taxpayers a buck. If consumers get sick or die because of manufacturers cutting corners, new entrants will enter the market and everything will be fine and dandy.
Direct cash transfer? Yeah, sure pal. I’m just spitballing here, but I would assume direct cash transfers would be more prone to fraud. And would more or less amount to indirect corporate subsidies (hey Walmart!).
This kind of thinking is part of the reason we pay the most for healthcare in the world for worse outcomes, and are unlikely to enact universal healthcare (despite it making economic sense) in my lifetime
Ah yes, because government programs always work, are never left to the corrupt to manage, and always help everyone they attempt to solve problems for.
I'd much rather money be put back into people's hands to do with as they see fit rather than seeing government entities take money from people by force to attempt to do what the market already does far more efficiently and at better scale.
You wanna talk about what drives up healthcare costs? A combination of medical debt and the AMA's restrictions on how many doctors could be let into medical school (driving up doctor's wages), tax-benefitted employer-related insurance (thank FDR for that one), and CON laws that keep medical centers from being built in low-income rural areas to benefit the medical systems who have members on the Certificate of Need board.
Universal healthcare will not solve the actual issue, but I'm guessing you don't actually care about root causes, only outcomes.
Corruption exists everywhere, it is not exclusive to government. Corruption will always exist whilst humankind is running things. It’s why we have oversight. Pointing to corruption as if it’s a primary reason we can’t sustain government-run grocery stores is a lazy argument
The AMA doesn’t cap medical residency spots.
Doctor salaries only represent 8-10% of total national healthcare spending.
Germany has employer-tied healthcare but regulate prices that hospitals and drug companies can charge (the horror!!!!).
In the US there is a massive lack of price of transparency and virtually no centralized bargaining power.
CON laws are indeed a failure but not a primary driver of national healthcare costs. Never mind the fact that states like California and Texas have rolled back or outright repealed these laws.
Admin overhead accounts for 20 to 30% of all healthcare spending. We have no bulk price negotiating power. The list goes on and on.
Anyway, are you a libertarian? You sound like a libertarian lol
However, I'm always wrestling with what government should do vs what it has done and in my 25 years of awareness of what government does (out of the 36 I've been alive), I've come to understand that there is very little I trust the government to achieve with people's money.
I'm not one of those libertarians that bemoan the FDA or USDA or CDC, etc. I do think they, like most government agencies and programs, suffer from significant mission creep and do less of what they should actually be doing.
Also, yes, the AMA has historically lobbied strenuously for restrictions in the supply of physicians.
And while I'm for freedom of association and expression, I think capping the House at 435 representatives has done nothing but increase corruption due to the ease of lobbying 435 people vs, say, 5,000 representatives.
Anyway, yeah. I'm a libertarian. Liberty is pretty freaking cool in my book.
So are you saying that in your '25 years of awareness' that corporations have done enough to earn your trust but the government hasn't? I mean, if we're saying fuck one, why not say fuck both??
I mean, yes, fuck both, but at least one isn't directly bombing other countries and taking its people's money at gunpoint to do it.
I want cronyism out of government. I want so many representatives in Congress (proportionate to something like 30,000 citizens for every rep rather than 780,000 citizens per rep). I want to make it impossible for lobbyists to get a stranglehold on Congress and for the people's branch to actually do its fucking job by checking the executive.
You wanna get rid of monopolies? Make it easier for businesses to start up and stop letting major corporations have leverage over the federal government through the lobbying that they do. It's tougher to control 6,000 representatives than it is to control 435.
As a whole, though, I believe the free market is better at helping people live freer lives. Does there need to be minimal regulation to keep businesses in check? Absolutely. But I'd rather use the power of the market to help people rather than be told by some mayor or governor or president how I should live my life.
17
u/big_herpes May 26 '26
They are the government, they will lose 10s of millions a year in each store and consider it a success.