- Capitalism and Alternatives -

The free market worked fine when it was left alone.

Posted by: DonS ( USA ) on November 11, 1999 at 10:50:09:

In Reply to: And look how shite that free market was posted by Lark on November 10, 1999 at 12:44:35:

: When people are purchasing welfare what is there to stop the supplier from over supplying or carrying out long procedures when short ones would suffice or prevent the inefficient use of resources? The market alone has proven it cant. Competition between hospitals wont bring about a better service either because hospitals arent like regular commodities they are fixed in place and people will attend them that's closest etc.

Don: Yet healthcare prices didn't seem to be a problem before medicare was instituted. The free market worked fine when it was left alone.

: HMO's evolved as the market proved further and further culpable to failure and there is no other reason, no statist conspiracy nothing DEAL WITH IT PLEASE!!!

Don: HMOs evolved because of the restrictions the government placed on doctors who recieve medicare payments. The government placed these restrictions because of "medicare fraud"--because medicare by its nature destroyed the natural free market relationship between medical doctors and their customers. I agree that it wasn't a conspiracy. Rather, it was a simple and unpredicted failure of a socialist program--medicare. If such a modest attempt at socialism entails such problems, what will larger attempts entail?


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