More anti-"Obamacare" right-wing protests

Principle of Free market: If you want to make a profit you have to give the consumer what they want. If a company produces faulty products or something the people don't people won't buy them and they won't make money. The consumer will then give their business to a company that makes a satisfactory good. To say private business is inefficient is like saying that they don't want to make money. Inefficiency hurts profits. Profits allow a company to grow and produce more goods for more people. The more efficient the production of a good the cheaper they can sell it for which gives them an advantage over other companies.

Basic principles of supply demand and production efficiency. Let the consumer decide which bushiness should succeed or fail. Government should be only a small part of the proses.

Government regulation should be basic and minimal. While some is necessary to manage basic requirements of safety too much regulation just distorts the market and creates problems for producers and consumers.

@jverne: that sucks about the gun and bike registration/regulation.... policies like that are made out of ignorance and fear. Do they really think it will solve the issue? No.
 
Provision of healthcare isn't the same as buying a car. It is a service, not a good, and it's meant to be a basic human right, not a luxury.
 
lord_raken said:
Principle of Free market: If you want to make a profit you have to give the consumer what they want. If a company produces faulty products or something the people don't people won't buy them and they won't make money. The consumer will then give their business to a company that makes a satisfactory good. To say private business is inefficient is like saying that they don't want to make money. Inefficiency hurts profits. Profits allow a company to grow and produce more goods for more people. The more efficient the production of a good the cheaper they can sell it for which gives them an advantage over other companies.

Basic principles of supply demand and production efficiency. Let the consumer decide which bushiness should succeed or fail. Government should be only a small part of the proses.
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Haha, all well and good. But if your product is the best, and requires little maintenance (let's say for instance, cars), and everyone who's going to buy one buys one... then what? There isn't going to be enough demand to keep you floating. You die. Just look at Hayes trucks.

Markets need inefficiency. Look at how staggeringly rich planned obsolescence has made the computer industry.
 
jimbo118 said:
Hmm your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
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Where is this phrase from? I've heard many a person quote it, yet I have no clue what the source is.
 
Eejit said:
Provision of healthcare isn't the same as buying a car. It is a service, not a good, and it's meant to be a basic human right, not a luxury.
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In America, we have to pay for goods and services.


Actually, right now I have no health insurance. It's too expensive even with a medium-income job and benefits from said job generally aren't enough to cover any accidents as I'd still would have to fork over dough and possibly have to skip a critical monthly bill like utilites or rent.

Life in teh US sucks right now. Anyone thinking of immigrating here should give it some serious consideration first. The era of the "American dream" has long passed. That ship has sailed since the 60's and even then it was over-hyped.

Americans still have it better than citizens of many other countries do, though that might not last much longer. America's infrastructure is failing and the government is having trouble coughing up the necessary funds to upgrade or replace things like watermains and bridges that are nearly a century old. Over 60% of US bridges have been deemed un-safe by the corps of civil engineering and mains and aquaducts are bursting everywhere, flooding cities and putting people at risk of highly contagious infections like ebola and salmonella.

I truly believe the US is in it's death thralls. Just like Rome before it, many of the same symptoms of collapse are occurring just as that once great power experienced.

I give the US 30 more years at the most, and that's an optimistic prediction.


In light of all this, I agree with Stern, and that's a rare occasion. (so savor the moment you jerk! :D)

Our healthcare system is broken and something needs to be done.
Having a 15$-20$ hr. paying job and still can't afford healthcare even when I have no other debts, is ridiculous.

My eldest sister is having the same problem with health insurance too, and she's close to going under for good, foreclosure on house etc., and she has three kids and a jobless boyfriend to tend with.
 
Viperidae said:
Haha, all well and good. But if your product is the best, and requires little maintenance (let's say for instance, cars), and everyone who's going to buy one buys one... then what? There isn't going to be enough demand to keep you floating. You die. Just look at Hayes trucks.

Markets need inefficiency. Look at how staggeringly rich planned obsolescence has made the computer industry.
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Efficiency does not mean that a good or service will never have to be replaced or repeated. Cars break down, rats be back into your house. Efficiency means that a company uses the fewest possible resources to produce a good or service. They could make a car that would run for 50 years but that would be an inefficient use of resources because the cost of production would be too high. This is called Production Efficiency.

Inefficiency only increases the price of production driving the price for consumers higher and reducing the companies profits. No one profits from inefficiency.
 
The fact of the matter is that profit-driven capitalism doesn't mesh well with healthcare or medical research in moral terms. What is best for the company is often not best for the "consumer" (i.e. the patient).


Did you know the biomedical giants prefer to develop treatments for diseases rather than cures? A cure you sell to a person once, a treatment you can sell to them for the rest of their life.
 
Eejit said:
The fact of the matter is that profit-driven capitalism doesn't mesh well with healthcare or medical research in moral terms. What is best for the company is often not best for the "consumer" (i.e. the patient).


Did you know the biomedical giants prefer to develop treatments for diseases rather than cures? A cure you sell to a person once, a treatment you can sell to them for the rest of their life.
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Yes. And then the company that makes a cure will become very wealthy because they have a cure while all the other companies only have treatments.

Research and development is how companies expand and make money. Private research has rendered more advancements than government funded research ever has. Those that develop something will make money off of it... and money is a huge motovator. It seem backward but selfishness is a huge promoter of public welfare.
 
lord_raken said:
Yes. And then the company that makes a cure will become very wealthy because they have a cure while all the other companies only have treatments.

Research and development is how companies expand and make money. Private research has rendered more advancements than government funded research ever has. Those that develop something will make money off of it... and money is a huge motovator. It seem backward but selfishness is a huge promoter of public welfare.
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look lord_raken you keep making these wide sweeping generalized statements without providing a shred of proof. once again a 5 second google search has yielded interesting results:




An often-quoted example used to illustrate the difference in efficiency between government-funded and privately funded research projects is the quest of mapping the human genome. The U.S. government was funding such a mission, called the Human Genome Project, while at the same time the quest was being pursued separately with private venture capital by Celera Genomics.

Celera Genomics used a newer, albeit riskier technique and proceeded at a faster pace and at a fraction of the cost of the tax-funded project (approximately $3 billion of taxpayer dollars versus about $300 million of private funding). Some HGP researchers claimed Celera's method of genome sequencing "would not work," however that project eventually adopted some of Celera's methods.

However, some researchers in the field of genomics have claimed that this comparison is unjust. Much of the funding provided for the HGP served the development of new technologies, rather than the sequencing of the human genome itself. Since Celera was a late-comer the company could already take advantage of the experience gained by the HGP. Though Celera's sequencing strategy allowed the sequencing of the majority of the human genome with a lot higher efficacy, the strategy used by the HGP allowed the sequencing of a higher percentage of the genome.
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so it's nowhere near as clear cut as you would have us believe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resear..._is_more_efficient_-_The_Human_Genome_Project
 
lord_raken said:
Yes. And then the company that makes a cure will become very wealthy because they have a cure while all the other companies only have treatments.
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Sometimes, but it's fairly common for the companies that make the treatments to patent potential cures and then not develop them for market, simply to stop others from doing so.
 
I don't think they should be allowed to patent new medicines. But of course, they rely on those because they need to recoup the development costs. Instead though I think there ought to be some sort of award fund set up. One which gives piles of cash.
 
Medical research should mainly be carried out by academia using government and charitable funding in my opinion. You just can't trust the private sector with some things.
 
L3N!N said:
Where is this phrase from? I've heard many a person quote it, yet I have no clue what the source is.
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From an episode of 'The Simpsons'. Homer says it to Bart about something.
 
I find it mildly retarded that people would be against the goverment taking care of your health. Ok, sure taxes are a concern, but most likely they don't outweigh the omfg expensive hospital fees in the US. And look at us, we have national health insurance, but our income tax rates are only at 16%.
 
Holy shit, so South Korea is a commie socialist country too?!
 
Of course not, you still have to pay for the insurance fees.
 
Eejit said:
Medical research should mainly be carried out by academia using government and charitable funding in my opinion. You just can't trust the private sector with some things.
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I agree. Especially with cancer research.

Chemotherapy is just too lucrative.
 
Well cancer research already has a lot of non-private funding already. The amount of charity and government money spent on it is huge. It's one of the better areas in that respect, though of course there's still room for improvement.
 
Eejit said:
Well cancer research already has a lot of non-private funding already. The amount of charity and government money spent on it is huge. It's one of the better areas in that respect, though of course there's still room for improvement.
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Would I be crazy to think that even some non-profit organizations and government programs are holding back on cancer research on purpose though?

What are the fields of medical research you say the private sectors can't be trusted with?
 
No, the non-profits etc. have no incentive to hold back with finding cures.

Basically they can't be trusted with any serious disease with the way patent laws currently are. If they're able to patent things and then not develop them it greatly hinders research by more altruistic groups. All biomedical patents should also have a shorter lifespan, 5-10 years perhaps rather than 20.
Much of this also applies to GM crops and the like but that's another story.
 
Eejit said:
No, the non-profits etc. have no incentive to hold back with finding cures.

Basically they can't be trusted with any serious disease with the way patent laws currently are. If they're able to patent things and then not develop them it greatly hinders research by more altruistic groups. All biomedical patents should also have a shorter lifespan, 5-10 years perhaps rather than 20.
Much of this also applies to GM crops and the like but that's another story.
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I wonder if that has anything to do with why they're having so much trouble with developing and administering a vaccine for the H1N1 virus in the US right now?

I think there should be a public option for serious illnesses like this to prevent an epidemic.
 
Saturos said:
I wonder if that has anything to do with why they're having so much trouble with developing and administering a vaccine for the H1N1 virus in the US right now?

I think there should be a public option for serious illnesses like this to prevent an epidemic.
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The government is already subsidizing the vaccine. it takes time to make vaccines.

And why would private companies hold back a cure for cancer (hypothetically assuming they have one)? If a company developed a cure they would almost instantly become unbelievably wealthy and have the whole world calling them saints. Their other products would sell on the virtue of their reputation, the scientists would get prizes and money and cancer would be cured.... everyone wins.

I know there are corrupt people out there who are more shortsighted in terms of immediate profits verses long term prosperity and that is sad. The the principle of the Invisible Hand works with honest business. corruption has always been a flaw of human nature.
 
Hmm, on topic of the vaccine: As far as I know, the US simply doesn't have the infrastructure to dole out vaccines across the country in case of a widespread pandemic, whereas the UK does (for instance). What is the private company solution?
 
jverne said:
there's a difference between "Laissez-faire" markets and mixed/regulated markets. i'm not propagating the first if i haven't been clear enough earlier.
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As a resident of a county with a mixed economy, I can tell you right now it doesn't work. What little development we have had was due to reduced market controls since the 90's. A mixed economy is characterised by nepotism, corruption and profligacy (who regulates the regulators?). It is characterised by government policy that keeps reversing after every election.

How is it that the pioneers of small government forgot it completely? It's f***ing tragic.

Laissez-faire is what America was built on, and it's what you have been chipping away at for decades.

PLEASE NOTE that I support public healthcare, since I believe it's a human right. Taxes should only be used for policing (and other services), schooling and healthcare IMO.

But I also believe that with less controls, new players could enter the insurance and healthcare markets.
 
lord_raken said:
And why would private companies hold back a cure for cancer (hypothetically assuming they have one)? If a company developed a cure they would almost instantly become unbelievably wealthy and have the whole world calling them saints. Their other products would sell on the virtue of their reputation, the scientists would get prizes and money and cancer would be cured.... everyone wins.

I know there are corrupt people out there who are more shortsighted in terms of immediate profits verses long term prosperity and that is sad. The the principle of the Invisible Hand works with honest business. corruption has always been a flaw of human nature.
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First of all there's not going to be any such thing as a single "cure for cancer". There are hundreds of different types of cancer which all work in different slightly different ways.
Secondly they don't hold back developed cures for diseases, what happens is that they sometimes discover promising avenues of research for potential cures then patent the essential part of it and stop developing down that line.
Thirdly this doesn't happen all the time with every disease and every company. If hypothetically they did develop up with some magically universal cancer cure they most likely would release it... assuming they developed it enough in the first place to realise what it could do.
Fourthly their long-term profits are almost always better treating a disease than curing it, that's the point.
 
99.vikram said:
As a resident of a county with a mixed economy, I can tell you right now it doesn't work. What little development we have had was due to reduced market controls since the 90's. A mixed economy is characterised by nepotism, corruption and profligacy (who regulates the regulators?). It is characterised by government policy that keeps reversing after every election.

How is it that the pioneers of small government forgot it completely? It's f***ing tragic.

Laissez-faire is what America was built on, and it's what you have been chipping away at for decades.

PLEASE NOTE that I support public healthcare, since I believe it's a human right. Taxes should only be used for policing (and other services), schooling and healthcare IMO.

But I also believe that with less controls, new players could enter the insurance and healthcare markets.
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The US most certainly does not have a Laissez-faire economy. The last time we had anything similar to one was during what was called the Gilded Age (end of the civil war to the beginning of the 20th Century). During that time there were no child labor laws, no minimum wage, no restrictions on monopolies, and overall few restrictions on private industry. What happened was an unsustainable concentration of wealth at the top. The working class worked absurdly long hours in unsafe conditions for next to nothing. Corporations could produce all day, but the consumers were too poor to afford to buy anything. This causes a boom-bust cycle that repeated every decade or so, with each bust worse than the previous one, eventually getting to the point that it was worse than the great depression. It was only government intervention in the early 20th Century that saved us from this cycle. Unregulated markets are self-destructive. We saw it then, we saw it with the banking collapse, and we are seeing it with health care.
 
Government should play a role. But only is the smallest least invasive manner possible. There are a few exceptions to the rule but as a very good rule government should just keep out of people's business.

Big government is bad and will only get worse the bigger it becomes.
 
Eejit said:
No, the non-profits etc. have no incentive to hold back with finding cures.

Basically they can't be trusted with any serious disease with the way patent laws currently are. If they're able to patent things and then not develop them it greatly hinders research by more altruistic groups. All biomedical patents should also have a shorter lifespan, 5-10 years perhaps rather than 20.
Much of this also applies to GM crops and the like but that's another story.
Click to expand...

Instead of shortening Patent lifespans, patents should be replaced with royalties so that anyone can produce the drug, but the inventing company gets a certain percentage of every pill produced or sold.
 
That's often the system used when academic teams work together with a company - the University gets royalties. And some companies do lease out the rights to their drugs like that.
It might well work as an enforced alternative to the current system.
 
staticprimer said:
The US most certainly does not have a Laissez-faire economy. The last time we had anything similar to one was during what was called the Gilded Age (end of the civil war to the beginning of the 20th Century). During that time there were no child labor laws, no minimum wage, no restrictions on monopolies, and overall few restrictions on private industry. What happened was an unsustainable concentration of wealth at the top. The working class worked absurdly long hours in unsafe conditions for next to nothing. Corporations could produce all day, but the consumers were too poor to afford to buy anything. This causes a boom-bust cycle that repeated every decade or so, with each bust worse than the previous one, eventually getting to the point that it was worse than the great depression. It was only government intervention in the early 20th Century that saved us from this cycle. Unregulated markets are self-destructive. We saw it then, we saw it with the banking collapse, and we are seeing it with health care.
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^Good point.

Except the problem is different. Companies during the 19th century pre-Industrial Age didn't have any problem making a profit. It was their employees that mostly got screwed over.

Employees in our health-care industry today have no problems getting paid or getting benefits. The issue is customers/patients who need immediate life of death attention with no money to afford insurance.

I think what Stern is saying about social medicine is that it doesn't affect doctors/nurses wages and benefits nor does it affect the quality of treatment, but cuts out the unnecessary middle-man, the insurance companies. Did anyone really think a multi-billion dollar industry was going to stand for this?

Thanks to the Baucus Bill, insurance companies will still be allowed to rob people of their health and money. In the US, money talks and BS walks, and voters/bureaucrats without the money are mostly BS sadly. Insurance companies were obviously lobbying for Mr. Baucus. I saw it coming a mile away though.
 
delusional said:
Instead of shortening Patent lifespans, patents should be replaced with royalties so that anyone can produce the drug, but the inventing company gets a certain percentage of every pill produced or sold.
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i like the idea....but wait, isn't it already like that?
 
No, the patent owner can choose to let it work like that but by default only they can produce the product.
 
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