Question on Socialized Medicine

<p>Icarus, aside from the fact that there is a lot of money to be made in malpractice by lawyers and by the insurance companies, it is in part driven by the costs in the healthcare system. A vicious circle. Add to that the extreme costs of education which forces doctors to have to have a certain income to pay off their debts. A European doctor gets to go to med school virtually free by our standards, hence doesn't need to make high 6-7 figure incomes to pay off those debts and is able to be more focused on the actual practice of medecine because they don't have to spend time worrying about insurance companies interfering with decisions...etc etc. The insurance companies can still make a profit because they know that the first part of illness is paid by healthcare system and they are just a nice little top up system (sometimes a little ridiculous, my private top-up when I worked in Europe offered me a new pair of glasses worth up to around 300 dollars every six months). Anyway, just to say it is all a circle you can't isolate the malpractice from the rest off the system.</p>

<p>Some things should never be left to the free market. Healthcare is one of them.</p>

<p>3%? I call ******** on this one. Sorry. Banks were making subprime loans left and right, and passing those junk papers off to hedge funds, private equity firms, etc. etc. whatever, and then of course the economy starts its inevitable correction, and people who took out unaffordable mortgages start defaulting left and right. And then it not only took out the banks that wrote bad loans, it's threatening to take the entire financial system worldwide with it. Ever since deregulation we've had an economic crisis every 5-10 years. Junk bonds, S&L, Dot-com, Enron (and various other corporate fraud), and now subprime mortgage. Each crisis gets worse than the one that preceded it. Each economic correction is more violent than the last. Each bailout costs more than the last. See where I'm going?</p>

<p>There's a REASON that regulations are in place, there's a REASON we don't see a half a dozen Canadian banks failing-they're REGULATED.</p>

<p>Unregulated free markets sound good in theory-and ONLY in theory. In practice however, it sucks. There's such a thing as MARKET FAILURE. The US insurance, banking, financial services, credit card, airline, automotive, etc. etc. industries are all great examples of complete and utter market failure. Especially banking. There's one happening AS WE SPEAK. </p>

<p>Let me ask you this: would you support not bailing out GM/Ford/Chrysler and letting them fail? Would you support letting all legacy airlines that can't turn a profit fail and opening up domestic flights to foreign airline competition? Would you support letting the banks fail? </p>

<p>Most staunch free-market libertarians would say no on all three counts. :rolleyes:</p>

<p>Single payer healthcare makes sense. It works. Frankly, I don't think I should have to pay $3,000 a year to an insurance company, only to have to fight them tooth and nail for every dollar of reimbursement I'm entitled to in exchange for paying them $3k a year. I've dealt with car insurance companies. It took them 4 months to pay out a claim that was obviously due to us (non-at fault accident, subrogation claim-what a pain). The entire insurance industry can go belly up right now and I wouldn't have any sympathy for them.</p>

<p>
[quote]

How are you defining natural rights and I would love to hear how you define civilization because apparently you would rather just have anarchy? ...no if we weren't a civilized world, we would probably be killing each other all the time. Please don't include vague sentences like 'look up why'...look up where?</p>

<p>I guess you don't like the UN Charter (see articles 24, 25, 26 for example).
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
gosh are you really going to make me talk about part-time work benefits and vacation for most Europeans? and ya know, their economy hasn't tanked to the point ours has....</p>

<p>I am not saying that our country isn't in serious trouble but if anything you could blame the utter waste brought on by the free market system instead of making rational decisions like universal single-player health plans which allow people to be much more independent regarding choices of employment, education etc.</p>

<p>By the way you need to clear up your spelling ...affects, not effects...

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Natural rights are natural rights. My vague sentences are in response to those who say the same, such as "remember?"</p>

<p>No I dont like the UN Charter, nor the UN, its a money sucking organization that does jack **** and only sucks from America.</p>

<p>Actually the majority of European economies have higher unemployment as well as inflation and big banks and investment firms are also failing, ex. Fortis</p>

<p>You also say that this problem was brought on by the free market. How is that possible when recessions, depressions booms and busts cant occur during. The problem we have is due to "To Much" regulation. Now you ask why a bank in Canada doesn't fail, well that's simple to answer also. It comes down to their regulation on currency, or lack thereof. </p>

<p>
[quote]
</p>

<p>Some things should never be left to the free market. Healthcare is one of them.</p>

<p>3%? I call ******** on this one. Sorry. Banks were making subprime loans left and right, and passing those junk papers off to hedge funds, private equity firms, etc. etc. whatever, and then of course the economy starts its inevitable correction, and people who took out unaffordable mortgages start defaulting left and right. And then it not only took out the banks that wrote bad loans, it's threatening to take the entire financial system worldwide with it. Ever since deregulation we've had an economic crisis every 5-10 years. Junk bonds, S&L, Dot-com, Enron (and various other corporate fraud), and now subprime mortgage. Each crisis gets worse than the one that preceded it. Each economic correction is more violent than the last. Each bailout costs more than the last. See where I'm going?</p>

<p>There's a REASON that regulations are in place, there's a REASON we don't see a half a dozen Canadian banks failing-they're REGULATED.</p>

<p>Unregulated free markets sound good in theory-and ONLY in theory. In practice however, it sucks. There's such a thing as MARKET FAILURE. The US insurance, banking, financial services, credit card, airline, automotive, etc. etc. industries are all great examples of complete and utter market failure. Especially banking. There's one happening AS WE SPEAK.</p>

<p>Let me ask you this: would you support not bailing out GM/Ford/Chrysler and letting them fail? Would you support letting all legacy airlines that can't turn a profit fail and opening up domestic flights to foreign airline competition? Would you support letting the banks fail?</p>

<p>Most staunch free-market libertarians would say no on all three counts.</p>

<p>Single payer healthcare makes sense. It works. Frankly, I don't think I should have to pay $3,000 a year to an insurance company, only to have to fight them tooth and nail for every dollar of reimbursement I'm entitled to in exchange for paying them $3k a year. I've dealt with car insurance companies. It took them 4 months to pay out a claim that was obviously due to us (non-at fault accident, subrogation claim-what a pain). The entire insurance industry can go belly up right now and I wouldn't have any sympathy for them.</p>

<p>

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Nationally foreclosure rates are at 3% in September. </p>

<p>futurenyustudent, ive explained to you already and provided evidence by Virginia Law and Duke, two prominent university's on the affects of regulation and health care. Obviously you don't know how to read, since you have kept the same argument. </p>

<p>You again mention deregulation, but you seem to not relize that regulation is the cause of the problems. In a 100% free market recessions, depressions booms and busts don't occur. They cant occur due to the proper market prices on capital goods. The reason we have a economic crisi every 5-10 years like you said, is due to something called a recession cycle. They are commonplace in a economy with a fiat currency. They are so commonplace they they actually must occur to reset the proper market price on capital goods. I dont see where you going because you mentality, like the rest of America doesnt make sense. You want to fix problems caused by regulation with more regulation and you want to fix problems caused by inflation with more inflation. It doesn't work. It just fuels the fire. Its common sense.</p>

<p>The candian banks are regulated, but less so than American banks. They dont have a high monetary inflation rate, and high inflation is regulation. I honestly think you need to rent or read online how fiat currency's work. You cant just keep debasing the currency and expect things to go ok. The problems we have now, are due to market forces redistributing the markets liquidity, we are trying to fight it. But in all honestly those people and banks deserve to fail, you can only inflate a currency so much. Every time we have a problem and/or a bailout all we do is increase inflation, which is like putting a patch on a balloon whose size is ever increasing, Eventually the balloon just wont hold anymore. We need to listen to the markets and the markets say there is to much money in the housing sector. Sorry, but if you took a bad loan or gave one, you deserve to fail and its nobody job to bail you out.</p>

<p>All of the sectors you mentioned are all regulated highly. While some more than others. Theirs not a sector in America that is 100% free and all it takes is 1 regulation and there no more free market. I urge you to read " The wealth of nations". </p>

<p>I would support not bailing out any company or sector. Just like I don't support any government aid or bailouts currently. I believe in zero redistribution of wealth and poll taxing. </p>

<p>If we didn't have the regulations, market forces would be much harsher to insurance companies, but again they lobby for the protection of government and a certain aspect of Cronyism and they can do whatever they want. In a free market they would never deny a patient, if they did they would just loose customers. There survival would be based soley on the customer.</p>

<p>Okay, fine, let's talk numbers, shall we?</p>

<p>Our healthcare system consistently gets its ass kicked year after year by systems in countries like France, the UK and Canada.....ALL countries with nationalised healthcare. We're number one in healthcare costs but we're number 39 in quality. Of the $4200 a year per capita we spend on healthcare, $1200 to $1600 go strictly to administration costs. Yes, paperwork and bureaurcracy. 39 million people are without health insurance in the US. I rest my case. :rolleyes: </p>

<p>Under your beloved free market system, people who can afford health insurance can get health insurance from insurance companies that would supposedly care about their customers. You say companies that deny insurance to patients would go out of business. Don't be silly, insurance companies are going to drop customers who aren't profitable for them. Americans aren't known to be very smart shoppers: they've been known to buy substandard products and services just to save money, not knowing that they end up spending more money because they have to replace that crap more often. So you have the same crap that you have under the current system: people with pre-existing conditions, people who are older, people who are poorer, etc. won't have health insurance. You've somehow deluded yourself into thinking that insurance companies would accept all patients. Yeah right, *****<strong><em>. They're only going to take profitable patients and ALL insurance companies are going to do the same thing. Peoople who can't afford health insurance would be *</em></strong> out of luck anyways. That's a risk I'm not willing to take with a human life. I'm sorry, as capitalistic and libertarian and antigovernment as I am, that's where I draw the line-you don't get to make a profit off the suffering of other people.</p>

<p>Under your hypothetical free market model, a lot of passengers demand cheap fares. Airlines would defer maintenance, take life jackets out of airplanes, not bother training their pilots and flight attendants, not fix obvious defects in their airplanes, and then tell the passengers to go screw themselves when a plane falls out of the sky or a flight gets cancelled. And passengers would come back, as long as the fare's the cheapest. How many people flew with American and Southwest after half their fleet got grounded over maintenance issues? </p>

<p>You've somehow deluded yourself into thinking that businesses will operate as usual completely unregulated. Ever hear of price-fixing? Ever hear of collusion? They'd agree to charge the same price and suck equally so that they can perpetuate their existence. What do you suggest, that I take the bus 2700 miles cross country 4 times a year to get to school? Sorry, not going to happen. As far as Adam Smith goes, he's dead. He's been dead for 300 years. He wasn't aware of the crap that goes on right now. If you want to go back to a time when workers had no rights, customers couldn't sue businesses to get them to *<strong><em>ing deliver what they were paid to deliver, where airlines can cancel a flight and tell the pax to go *</em></strong> themselves, where businesses would get together and engage in collusion and price-fixing and where courts would uphold these agreements, and you had no recourse to any of this because they're all doing the same thing, that's fine by me. I'll just sit back in the 21st century and watch you get screwed over by cartels, abused by your employers and have no decent healthcare.</p>

<p>There's a REASON for antitrust laws. There's a REASON for FAA safety directives. There's a REASON for employment laws. There's a REASON for public disclosure laws, consumer protection laws, product liability laws, etc. etc. etc. The Wealth of Nations doesn't take into account collusion. It ignores it altogether. We've already seen what companies will do when the do-nothing presidents leave them to their own devices. They WILL collude, they WILL price-fix, they WILL form trusts and drive any competition into bankruptcy. </p>

<p>In theory, it looks great. In practice, it's crap. If you can't understand that in practice, firms will collude with each other and form one big collusive oligopoly, then I'm talking to a brick wall.</p>

<p>You sprew more bs that I can really believe.</p>

<p>
[quote]

Our healthcare system consistently gets its ass kicked year after year by systems in countries like France, the UK and Canada.....ALL countries with nationalised healthcare. We're number one in healthcare costs but we're number 39 in quality. Of the $4200 a year per capita we spend on healthcare, $1200 to $1600 go strictly to administration costs. Yes, paperwork and bureaurcracy. 39 million people are without health insurance in the US. I rest my case.<br>

[/quote</p>

<p>Key word in these ratings "System", you say we are 39 in quality which is false, sorry we are 39th in system. System has more to due with ability to deliver and efficiency than quality. Even Moore's Sicko, uses this as the main point in the movie. That out system sucks, but health care quality is second to none. Theres a reason why the worlds elite come to America. Its obvious.</p>

<p>You mention paper work and bureaucracy, guess who mandates such? Would it be the government? oh yes.</p>

<p>You do know that bureaucracy is a concept of political science in which governments place a structure of regulation to control activity. Ive bolded keywords for you.</p>

<p>In December I will be one of those 39 million, but im not going to take handouts. I don't deserve health care unless I earn it. I take you lookup some of my earlier posts to see my current situation in which ive posted many times. I live in the 3rd poorest country in America and the 1st urban, as well as the poorest congressional district in America. I was born here and will live here my whole life. Even with that, I live with the majority of those who don't have health care. I still don't want it.</p>

<p>[quote]
</p>

<p>Under your beloved free market system, people who can afford health insurance can get health insurance from insurance companies that would supposedly care about their customers. You say companies that deny insurance to patients would go out of business. Don't be silly, insurance companies are going to drop customers who aren't profitable for them. Americans aren't known to be very smart shoppers: they've been known to buy substandard products and services just to save money, not knowing that they end up spending more money because they have to replace that crap more often. So you have the same crap that you have under the current system: people with pre-existing conditions, people who are older, people who are poorer, etc. won't have health insurance. You've somehow deluded yourself into thinking that insurance companies would accept all patients. Yeah right, *****<strong><em>. They're only going to take profitable patients and ALL insurance companies are going to do the same thing. Peoople who can't afford health insurance would be *</em></strong> out of luck anyways. That's a risk I'm not willing to take with a human life. I'm sorry, as capitalistic and libertarian and antigovernment as I am, that's where I draw the line-you don't get to make a profit off the suffering of other people.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Im not being silly, market dynamics are very easy to understand. So American stupidity is a excuse? I find that ridiculous. While it maybe be true that companies will only take patients that are profitable, in a free market there is always a guarantee for infinite competition and somebody will cater to these people. In fact since it is such a competitive atmosphere, companies will gain more profit from sheer numbers of customers rather than being selective. </p>

<p>All I can say for those who cant afford it is work harder. Why cant they afford it? I don't somehow feel sorry for them or feel sympathy. They don't deserve health care.</p>

<p>
[quote]

Under your hypothetical free market model, a lot of passengers demand cheap fares. Airlines would defer maintenance, take life jackets out of airplanes, not bother training their pilots and flight attendants, not fix obvious defects in their airplanes, and then tell the passengers to go screw themselves when a plane falls out of the sky or a flight gets cancelled. And passengers would come back, as long as the fare's the cheapest. How many people flew with American and Southwest after half their fleet got grounded over maintenance issues?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Nobody forces the customers to come back or even use that company. Customers can pay for independent testing, like many already do. Customers can set up non governmental certifications for carriers. While these would be no governmental enforcement, like Ive said the forces of the market are alot more unforgiving than any law or government. If people are idiots and choose a unsafe service or product due to price they deserve the imprecations of such. Ex. If somebody takes medication and trusts their doctor and they are hurt by it, its their fault and nobody else's. </p>

<p>
[quote]
</p>

<p>You've somehow deluded yourself into thinking that businesses will operate as usual completely unregulated. Ever hear of price-fixing? Ever hear of collusion? They'd agree to charge the same price and suck equally so that they can perpetuate their existence. What do you suggest, that I take the bus 2700 miles cross country 4 times a year to get to school? Sorry, not going to happen. As far as Adam Smith goes, he's dead. He's been dead for 300 years. He wasn't aware of the crap that goes on right now. If you want to go back to a time when workers had no rights, customers couldn't sue businesses to get them to *<strong><em>ing deliver what they were paid to deliver, where airlines can cancel a flight and tell the pax to go *</em></strong> themselves, where businesses would get together and engage in collusion and price-fixing and where courts would uphold these agreements, and you had no recourse to any of this because they're all doing the same thing, that's fine by me. I'll just sit back in the 21st century and watch you get screwed over by cartels, abused by your employers and have no decent healthcare.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Actually businesses operate better unregulated. Ive heard of and studied price fixing, collusion and corporatism, ive mentioned them a few times here on this site. In a environment of infinite competition price fixing, collusion and corporatism do not and cannot exist. Its quite simple, as ive stated before, that if companies a,b & c decide to fix prices, the market will react and companies d-z will gain companies a-c's customers. There will always we a company there to cater to the needs of the market, since they are driven by profits. if lets say A-Z all meet up, well A1-Z1 will take there customers. But I have to ask you, why you think this price fixing, collusion and corporatism is possible in free markets. Truthfully companies rely on government to regulate a sector, every time a regulation is passed, the bar is raised and it becomes harder and harder for new companies to be created. Then big companies merge and they lobby for government to regulate there now bigger business, and to regulate such a big companies, regulations need to go higher and higher. In all of this, the little guy who may have had a bright idea to revolutionize the market is never allowed to play. Now since these companies are so big, they dont have any competition to worry about. No now they can implement price fixing, collusion and corporatism. It all requires a level of** cronyism.**</p>

<p>
[quote]

There's a REASON for antitrust laws. There's a REASON for FAA safety directives. There's a REASON for employment laws. There's a REASON for public disclosure laws, consumer protection laws, product liability laws, etc. etc. etc. The Wealth of Nations doesn't take into account collusion. It ignores it altogether. We've already seen what companies will do when the do-nothing presidents leave them to their own devices. They WILL collude, they WILL price-fix, they WILL form trusts and drive any competition into bankruptcy.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I see no need for any of them, simple market forces can take care of all of these. Monopolies rarly exist in a free market because competition doesn't allow them to. if a company in a free market does become a monopoly, its due to the market actually embracing them, and people are choosing the monopoly over the small guy, and there nothing wrong with that. Google if a monopoly would be a good thing, they treat everybody good. Star bucks if a monopoly would be a good thing.</p>

<p>you say you know economics, but you haven't a clue. I don't claim to know everything or even most, but I study economics and understand the basics and I understand them well. You need to dig deeper in your understanding and be eclectic.</p>

<p>Evidently I'm wasting my time. I'm done.</p>

<p>We're both going in circles. How bout I agree to disagree with you and be done with it? </p>

<p>Good.</p>

<ol>
<li>A Canadian-style healthcare system would be a disaster for the US; it is already a disaster for Canada.</li>
</ol>

<p>I used to live near up north about 20 miles south of the Canadian border. Our hospitals were full of Canadians coming down because their healthcare system was so inadequate. They would have to wait 2 years in Canada for a procedure they could have done in a week in the United States.</p>

<p>Also, lots of doctors from Canada drove down to work in our hospital each day. Their explanation? Under the Canadian healthcare system, they were woefully undercompensated (only making about $65,000 per year).</p>

<p>5.</p>

<p>ah no... my aunt is a full time physician in toronto. her gross income totals more than $400,000 a year. Please don't embarrass yourself if you can't provide any reliable facts.</p>

<p>I used to live 15 miles north of the border. Somehow, during my 10 years stay there, I never had the urge or temptation to go across the border to receive "quality health care." I simply don't feel the necessity to give up big chunks of our hard-earned wages just to receive "health care." </p>

<p>And Cuse0507, ever heard of the Patient Guaranteed Wait Times Act? Prime Minister Stephen Harper led Parliament and enacted the legislation more than 2 years ago, making it a legal responsibility for all levels of government to guarantee quality patient care services within a shortened and resticted time frame after public consensus. This service officially applies to all Citizens, Permanent Residents, and Non-Resident Visitors and tourists.</p>

<p>Even after Patient Guaranteed Wait Times Act</p>

<p>There are still long wait times</p>

<p>Wait</a> times for surgery in Canada at all-time high: study
Slow</a> progress made on wait times: report</p>

<p>A great report
Wait</a> Time Alliance</p>

<p>The</a> Waiting Game: ER Wait Times In Canada vs US Sigmund, Carl and Alfred</p>

<p>From 2008
Outaouais</a> ER wait times 20 hours, 42 minutes and counting</p>

<p>80% of western Quebec residents lack faith in ERs</p>

<p>80%</a> of western Quebec residents lack faith in ERs: poll</p>

<p>I can go forever. You guys keep believing what you believe, IL be realistic and look at the numbers.</p>

<p>
[quote]
ah no... my aunt is a full time physician in toronto. her gross income totals more than $400,000 a year. Please don't embarrass yourself if you can't provide any reliable facts.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I am providing facts. Of course there are individual physicians who will do well, but our ER was full of Canadian docs who simply weren't getting enough
(as I said, roughly $65,000 annually) under the Canadian system.</p>

<p>Is your aunt a specialist? They always tend to do better, while general medicine and ER doctors were the ones who were suffering just north of us and therefore crossed down to moonlight in American hospitals. </p>

<p>
[quote]
I used to live 15 miles north of the border. Somehow, during my 10 years stay there, I never had the urge or temptation to go across the border to receive "quality health care."

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'm glad. Unfortunately, a lot of your fellow citizens felt differently and routinely crossed the border to get American care.</p>

<p>And as Dr. Horse has shown, problems still remain even after the Patient Guaranteed Wait Times Act was implemented.</p>

<p>A link from a physicians website discussing the same issue...</p>

<p>The Grass Is Not Always Greener
A Look at National Health Care Systems Around the World
by Michael Tanner</p>

<p><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-613.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-613.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Warning! Source is CATO;</p>

<p>The</a> Cato Institute</p>

<p>Cato's Mission
The mission of the Cato Institute is to increase the understanding of public policies based on the principles of limited government, free markets, individual liberty, and peace. The Institute will use the most effective means to originate, advocate, promote, and disseminate applicable policy proposals that create free, open, and civil societies in the United States and throughout the world.</p>

<p>can't vouch for it. Also; 48 pages!</p>

<p>Gosh Dr. Horse, you get all your facts from newspapers or blogs...how sophisticated of you. Thank you Shrinkrap for noting what CATO's mission is as a qualifying factor. ..that is observant (I mean that). Not only do I have friends/family in France but guess what,more in Canada and none of them have ever had any difficulty getting healthcare..but perhaps the procedure was something like cosmetic surgery rather than something crucial and urgent???.Oh no I even have family in Britain...same thing, no problems. So Dr. Horse until you have "been there and done that'' perhaps you need to rethink about relying on just newspaper articles for information which, by definition are bound to promote extremes just to get attention....
by the way did you hear that the Big Europeans just got together today (Saturday) to work out a plan to keep their economies from tanking thanks to us and, hm, they are setting up a financial regulatory body and providing emergency loan packages for SMALL BUSINESSES. How horribly socialist of them.</p>

<p>According to Obama, giving a $5000 credit to everyone so they can choose their own plans...is radical.</p>

<p>I'd take that $5000 credit over a mandate but that's just me. $5000 less I'd have to spend.</p>

<p>merepoule</p>

<p>How do you know my objection to socialized medicine is not based on experience. Ive chosen not to use my experience because it doesn't mean anything, Id rather use facts. As I type this I am 20 minutes outside of the peace bridge to Ontario. I was in Chanda 3 days ago. Dont belive me, have the mods trace route my ip address and she what school the domain is from.</p>

<p>yeas of course the CBC, a respected international news organization is not respected. Ya know how when you read the articles and they mention where they got the data, yeah those are called sources. Some sources listed at Fraser Institute, Canadian Medical Association, wait time alliance, Le Comit</p>

<p>What is wrong with personal experience if it is backed up by statistics which is more than some vp candidates would do ( you can't prove that America delivers better healthcare over all; it just delivers faster care especially for elective surgery where the main problem in Canada lies and they are working on it a bit harder than we are --look at their Wait</a> Times in Canada - Health Care System)</p>

<p>if you look at National</a> Healthcare Disparities Report, 2007 you will see that our system especially punishes those of color and makes them wait for critical care. </p>

<p>We can argue and argue but you still haven't been persuasive that the system they have in, say France, and which has been operative and improving on access and efficiency for decades is the wrong path</p>

<p>your first link is like the US government on a .gov site saying we have no problems. Like On the treasury's site, saying everything is swell with our economy. A 10 year plan doesn't mean anything, its what happening now.</p>

<p>There is a problem with experience when all data goes against the experience. If 80% of people are unhappy with service, your experience doesn't override it.</p>

<p>I am not trying to persuade anybody, Im just defending non regulated systems. To me there is no difference between the American social system and the French, British, Canadian social systems. Prices in both situations are much higher than the true market value and customers or tax payers are being ripped off.</p>

<p>as for the Disparities report, I never disagreed with that fact, but in that I see nothing wrong with that. If you cant afford health care you don't deserve it. Its plain and simple.</p>

<p>"as for the Disparities report, I never disagreed with that fact, but in that I see nothing wrong with that. If you cant afford health care you don't deserve it. Its plain and simple."</p>

<p>Please dr. horse, if you like to preach your classical economic theories, I hope you find a good time machine (like the one in back to the future) and go back to your 19th century industrial revolution england or 1920s pittsburg. Your out-of-date defense of social darwinism doesn't belong here in the 21st century. Have a pleasant journey (btw, it's a one way ticket)!</p>

<p>And please, dr. horse, don't just restrict your prodigious talent in world economics to College Confidential "cafe". Oh, we would love to receive you as an honored guest here in Baltimore's Inner City. Your apathetic attitude towards the plight of your fellow citizens will certainly be well received here (don't worry buddy, we'll have an ambulance ready just in case anything happens). No matter how your talent and wit will excel, you cannot win the people's heart with a compassion the length of a teaspoon. Cool your jets man.</p>

<p>^He's not running for office, I doubt he's trying to "win the people's heart"</p>

<p>
[quote]

Please dr. horse, if you like to preach your classical economic theories, I hope you find a good time machine (like the one in back to the future) and go back to your 19th century industrial revolution england or 1920s pittsburg. Your out-of-date defense of social darwinism doesn't belong here in the 21st century. Have a pleasant journey (btw, it's a one way ticket)!

[/quote]
</p>

<p>So according to you, any dated ideas are invalid? The Constitution is just as old as The Wealth of Nations, does that make the Bill of Rights null and void?</p>

<p>If I was running for any office id keep the same stance. Take a look at works from MLK, Malcolm X and other prominent civil rights activists. None of them wanted the white mans handout, they never asked for AA. No AA was derived by white guilt. </p>

<p>If you actually live in a poor area, in which I am from. The mindset is not what the media portrays. The mindset is actually the opposite, they hate AA and government sponsored programs. They want the government out of their lives. </p>

<p>AA and other social programs geared towards minorities are nothing more than the white man admitting minorities are not equal and the white man creating dependencies on the poor. Even Obama agrees with me</p>

<p>YouTube</a> - Barack Obama in Beaumont, TX</p>