Thought Exercise - Why Socialism Fails, page 1
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Topic started on 18-3-2010 @ 05:39 PM by mnemeth1
Experiment:

Pretend there is no US federal government at all for a moment.

Now assume two states are side by side and equal in all respects. - same laws, same taxes, same everything.

State A decides it wants to socialize healthcare.

In order to do this, it will necessarily have to set prices and raise taxes to pay for it. Doctors will be put under control of the state and they will have their costs and prices dictated to them. Care will be free for all and its costs will be borne by the tax payer. Doctors will be paid a set wage like any other bureaucrat. Healthcare would operate like any other government owned industry.

---

State B decides it wants to totally deregulate medical care and eliminate all subsidies and state programs. No state involvement in healthcare at all. Insurance companies would be free to operate as they saw fit. No regulation over insurance at all. No regulation over medical care at all. Taxes would appropriately decrease and medical costs would be set by market competition.

---

Question, how would state A know its setting the correct prices and paying the correct wages to its doctors?

If you were a consumer that worked for a living and could afford insurance, which state would you prefer to work in and seek care in?

If you were a doctor, which state would you prefer to work in?

If state A decided to lock its doctors wages to that of state B, is this technically feasible? Remember, doctors in state B have almost no administrative overhead and lower taxes - meaning they get to keep more of that money for themselves.

Wouldn't state A have to pay their doctors MORE than state B to make up for the money lost in additional taxes and administrative expenses to keep them from leaving?

How would state A control costs if care was free for everyone? If medical care is "free" wouldn't more people seek care in state A than in state B? If there are more people seeking care, but the same number of doctors between states, wouldn't state A need to pay its doctors more simply to entice more doctors to come to their state instead of state B because it needed them to cover all the patients?

Wouldn't the ultimate outcome of this be that state A would be forced to raise taxes higher and either pay their doctors more than state B or be forced to ration the care?

Would state A have a problem with freeloaders from state B?

What effect would the higher taxes have on workers? If a person could get insurance in B for a cheaper cost than the medical taxes in A, wouldn't a person want to work in B rather than A since they would get to keep more money for themselves? Since insurance would be deregulated in B, people could get extremely cheap catastrophic insurance plans and stuff some money into savings accounts for minor medical emergencies.

If state A decided to ration care in order to compete with the cheap cost of care in state B (meaning they could lower taxes to match the cost of B's insurance), wouldn't people in A get pissed that they had to wait in line?

If workers leave A for B, wouldn't that put pressure on the tax revenue A needed to pay for its socialized medical care? Would this force more rationing of care in A?


---------------

Now, what would A's response be to all of this?


reply posted on 19-3-2010 @ 08:17 AM by mnemeth1
reply to post by hotpinkurinalmint



No, my thought experiment is just fine.

Its socialism that has flaws.

Like not being able to correctly price goods along with the added cost of bureaucracy and inefficiency.


reply posted on 19-3-2010 @ 11:11 AM by DJM8507
I personally think they should just form another branch of the military, call it "MediCorps" or "Health Force" or something. And its sole mission is to protect our nation, it's people, from biological attack, watch for diseases, and to provide health counseling, services, and even wellness programs to citizens. Combining the CDC, FDA, etc.

It should provide world class training and education and train doctors and nurses and all other necessary individuals to man such a system. It could be integrated with the current hospital system in our armed forces, and funded via health savings, maintaining disease and wellness and also through the diversion of funds that would have been paid to health insurance, directly to the US government/Health Corps.

Doctors would be rewarded with pensions, benefits, continuing education, and rank and also through the respect of our communities. They will also be underworked to ensure energy, clear minded decisions, and the ability to have an adequate family life through a higher supply of doctors and nurses.

So instead of the $2 trillion per year going to health insurance companies it goes towards this program.

We fund a military that protects American lives, yet every year, millions die due to health reasons and yet we have very little in place to protect or save us. We spent trillions on a war against terror over a few thousand lives, yet nearly nothing on the hundreds of thousands that die every year in our country from health related circumstances.

It does seem to me to be a corporate form of Eugenic or Class cleansing, one that we could prevent with given modern technologies.


reply posted on 19-3-2010 @ 12:42 PM by UsernameCory
Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to
post by hotpinkurinalmint



No, my thought experiment is just fine.

Its socialism that has flaws.

Like not being able to correctly price goods along with the added cost of bureaucracy and inefficiency.


As someone already pointed out to everyone, the US ranks lower than a lot of socialist countries that provide health care. i fail to see how you would have suggested that these top health care countries would have done better without socialistic health care.


reply posted on 19-3-2010 @ 01:01 PM by drwizardphd
Originally posted by mnemeth1


No, my thought experiment is just fine.

Its socialism that has flaws.

Like not being able to correctly price goods along with the added cost of bureaucracy and inefficiency.


Hmm, where do you people get this stuff?

How do we know how to "correctly price goods" anyway? You are aware that, thanks to private insurance, we have ridiculously bloated medical costs in this country, right?


More money per person is spent on health care in the United States than in any other nation in the world,[6][7] and a greater percentage of total income in the nation is spent on health care in the U.S. than in any United Nations member state except for East Timor.[7] Despite the fact that not all citizens are covered, the United States has the third highest public healthcare expenditure per capita.[8][9] A 2001 study in five states found that medical debt contributed to 62% of all personal bankruptcies.[10]


Wiki


Hmm, maybe the Socialized countries are on to something. Their general practitioners still make $79,942 - $120,635 a year (source), yet their overall costs to the taxpayer and individual are way below ours here in the USA.

Meanwhile, despite the fact that we all use privatized insurance, more of our tax dollars go towards healthcare than all but 2 of the other nations in the world.

It just doesn't make sense to me. How could an EVIL SOCIALIST country like the UK manage to pay their doctors well, provide coverage for all of their citizens, and still manage to pay less per-capita than the United States?


reply posted on 19-3-2010 @ 01:09 PM by hotpinkurinalmint
reply to post by mnemeth1



Socialism has its flaws, but so does capitalism. The United States was never a completely capitalist society and the Soviet Union even had elements of capitalism in its societies.

If you open up an economics textbook, there should be a chapter on market failures. These are situations where the free market is not the most efficient way to allocate a resource. Many free market economies, including our own, have adopted socialism when market failures existed. For example, the United States has had socialized fire departments because socialized fire departments were better at keeping towns from burning down than private fire departments.

The question with health care reform is whether the private system as it exists has created a market failure. The private system in America costs our economy a lot of money. As it now stands, about 20% of the country has no health care coverage. People are unable to change jobs or pursue career goals because they are affraid of losing their healthcare. Furthermore, a large percentage of our healtcare expenditures have to go towards marketing, paying executive salaries, and shareholder profits.

Socialist systems do not have these costs. Everybody in Germany and Canada has healthcare. Britons do not have to turn down jobs because they are worried about insurance coverage. The Socialized systems of Europe do not have to pay for advertising and executive salaries. The socialized systems of Europe do not have to worry about turning a profit.


reply posted on 19-3-2010 @ 01:19 PM by mnemeth1
Here's some facts on our current fascist model of healthcare:

In 2008, Medicare provided health care coverage for 45 million Americans, making it the largest single health care payer in the nation. Enrollment is expected to reach 78 million by 2030.

In 2008, Medicaid provided health coverage and services to approximately 49 million.

During FY2008, the VHA had an estimated total enrolled veteran population of 7.9 million and provided medical care to about 5.2 million unique veteran patients.

This of course does not include state socialist care programs such as Medi-Cal or MassHealth.

Well over 100 million people out of 300 million are currently receiving socialist care in Amerika today.

Lets look at the results compared to real free-market healthcare:

2007 Breast augmentation $3,690
2003 Breast Augmentation $3,257
2003 Adjusted for inflation: 3665.69

Almost no increase at all even though the demand for breast augmentation went up dramatically during that time period.

Massive increase in demand, massive increase in technology, yet prices remained stable.

Amazing? Miracle of God? How could this be!!!?

Its called the free-market. - Yet even plastic surgery isn't entirely free-market. The doctors have to jump through tons of State mandated hoops before they can preform the surgeries. The number of doctors that can preform the surgery is artificially limited by State licensing boards and the medical schools. Etc.. etc.. etc..



My point being, we don't have free-market healthcare here in Amerika today, so stop claiming we do.









[edit on 19-3-2010 by mnemeth1]


reply posted on 19-3-2010 @ 01:40 PM by rusethorcain
reply to post by mnemeth1



I listened to a call in show on C-SPAN recently and though the lines were open to Independents, Republicans, and Democrats nearly all the calls were people in FAVOR OF THE HEALTH CARE BILL.

One caller demanded that all politicians against this bill give up their own FEDERAL EMPLOYEE HEALTH BENEFIT PACKAGE and but private insurance as they advise the rest of us to do. After all, taxpayers indirectly pay for this SOCIALIZE HEALTH INSURANCE PROGRAM. An idea I am in complete agreement with.

Even though there is a large wealthy contingency that doesn't want to- I'd like to stop big insurance from holding us hostage.

Remember back when it was you, your aches and pains, your doctor and then your pharmacist?
Who let big insurance into this equation in the first place?
They have effectively hi-jacked our health care and there are those all for it.

We can all do without big insurance taking a chunk of money from all of us.
For what???We were healthier when the whole patient doctor relationship made more sense.

Anyone else feel a conspiracy to not just make you sick but to keep you ill?

Now there is a RING of extra people in this doctor patient chain...big pharma and insurance, even your employer, who can BTW legally take a life insurance policy out on you while they allow you to work with (asbestos-like) hazardous substances and cash it in when you croak.

If you take the untenable stand of defending big business and insurance companies - you either don't have a clue or worse you have a deliberate agenda to make people suffer.
People not in favor of this health care bill already have health care...
people who don't have insurance and cannot afford to pay $25 an aspirin or $45 a tongue depressor - things your insurance will cover.

All they can find to use as a wedge (since communism isn't working) is abortion...something Nuns are in favor of allowing. I think these (mostly) male self professed demi-gods are actually part of an (E street) Illuminati clan - not for people, not for citizens and believe they are above the law and above the people who are economically below them.
These are bad angels. Very bad angels. If you look at them grouped together -you can easily see the lurching figures, sneering and grimacing. They even look like very bad people. In The Christmas Carol there are those tearing down the bedsheets and robbing the poor dead scrooge while he still lays in the bed. Greed and human degradation, unleashed. These are those people fighting this plan. They care not a wit for your rights or your money and are the first to take them both before you know what hit you - in the name of patriotism.

It has occurred to me recently when I see the discord in this country and cries of "socialism" that if we keep tearing out and eating our own innards we are prey to anyone of any country better organized to take us over.

If we don't become at least so socialized that we are on the same of the most basic of pages we divided, can easily be over come by a country with a greater will and sense of purpose... like China.








[edit on 19-3-2010 by rusethorcain]


reply posted on 19-3-2010 @ 01:50 PM by mnemeth1
reply to post by rusethorcain



In case you missed the last post, we don't have free-market care here in Amerika today.

Socialism is what has caused the massive increase in healthcare prices, not the free-market.

There is no free market healthcare in America except for plastic surgery and other elective procedures that medicare and the insurance companies refuse to cover.

If you want to see what would happen to healthcare costs if we stopped being so socialist, all you have to do is look at the price history of plastic surgery to find out.
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