no Tue efficiency isn't the problem. Efficiency is a good good thing. What is so hard about this? Lets try this another way. Question 1: are consuemrs a necessary part of the economy? Question 2: are jobs required for consumers to make money? Question 3: does it matter how efficient the production is if there is no one to buy the product? Again. The efficiency is irrelevent. Machines don't buy goods. The problem is jobs -yuri
First off, I have a thread related question op. Part of the reason machines replace humans is because of cost. I wonder. Is the cost of machines only cheap because humans must be paid minimum wage??? And papa bull. Thanks for admitting defeat. I know its hard to swallow that pride which is why you said it this way but I forgive you ill take that as an admission of defeat, since you clearly don't know wjat yyou are talking about this is a typical response for people subjected to cognitive dissonance when proven wrong but unable to evolve above preconceived notions Fact still remains that efficiency doesn't matter if there are no consumers to buy the products -yuri
Automation isn't destroying the economy. That's typically been the job of hair-brained, partisan political policies .
Wow! Great thought! At least maybe we could turn down the gain factor a little on the machines' lie algorithms.
Just saw a headline in the news today. Front page news in Hawaii "Obama care will rise because of high demand.... What the fuck?! How can affordable healthcare for the masses get more expensive due to high demand? O wait. Basic economics. Supply and demand. Socialism epic fail... -Yuri
The laws of supply and demand, sound Austrian economics, reason, logic, history and historical empirical evidence mean nothing to the socialist. It's like telling a kid that Santa does not exist on Christmas morning. "Oh yeah? The where did all these toys come from you idiot? "
The laws of supply and demand don't always work which is what any basic economics course will tell you. If you have an inelastic good like healthcare people a. Don't know how much a procedure should cost and b. Will pay whatever they are told because it's such a necessity. When you talk about something like bread there are literally hundreds of competitors and if the price is too expensive you can just say fuck it and buy some other type of food. There is no alternative to receiving medical care which is why the laws of supply and demand don't always work. On top of that when it comes to items like food we all know how much things should cost generally whereas we are clueless when it comes to healthcare. On top of that a lot of money insurance companies spend is to figure out ways to not cover people. They literally spend tons of money to not spend money. On top of that the current system encourages people to wait until a problem gets worse before they go in which costs us billions every year in extra healthcare costs then if they just decided to go to the doctors right away. When you are talking about certain services like healthcare/police the laws of supply and demand aren't as good at modeling the situation. You can argue that it's still better off in the private sector and there may be some legitimacy to that, but to pretend that healthcare follows the basic laws of supply and demand is silly.
that entire post is BS The reason we have that so called "inelastic" healthcare isn't because <blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' >people a. Don't know how much a procedure should cost and b. Will pay whatever they are told because it's such a necessity. </blockquote> Its because crushing regulations prevent competition and artificially raise costs. The reason heart surgery costs hundred of thousands iisn't because greedy doctors monopolize on people's ignorance. Its because of the sheer cost of liscencing, school, malpractice, and the works -Yuri
In southern EU a heart bypass surgery costs 5-10,000. In S. America it's roughly the same. Round here where we eat and breath crippling regulations it's 20,000usd. Yet it's 70-80,000 in the U.S. If you make society pay for it maybe hospitals will find ways to lower costs? http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/why-does-... (PBS) Paul Solman: Why does health care cost so much in America? David Cutler: Let me give you three reasons why. The first one is because the administrative costs of running our health care system are astronomical. About one quarter of health care cost is associated with administration, which is far higher than in any other country. Paul Solman: What's the next highest? David Cutler: About 10, 15 percent. Just to give you one example, Duke University Hospital has 900 hospital beds and 1,300 billing clerks. The typical Canadian hospital has a handful of billing clerks. Single-payer systems have fewer administrative needs. That's not to say they're better, but that's just on one dimension that they clearly cost less. What a lot of those people are doing in America is they are figuring out how to bill different insurers for different systems, figuring out how to collect money from people, all of that sort of stuff.
The first half doesn't make any sense. The definition of an inelastic good is not based on anything except the necessity of said good. All an inelastic good means is that the good is so necessary to the individual that the demand won't change based on the price. You can argue that the cost is so expensive because of gov intervention, but it doesn't change the fact that medicine/healthcare are inelastic goods which are ripe for price gouging in a pure free market. This is not a debatable point. You can argue about the implications of this price inelasticity or price gouging wouldn't occur on a grand scale but to argue that healthcare isn't price inelastic is arguing against common economic principles. One of the most prime examples of an inelastic good is healthcare since you need it to live if you are sick. Now to address the second half, there may be some validity in what you're saying but the alternative of not having licensing for doctors is a very bad idea. There are enough bad doctors as it is, opening up the door to unlicensed medical professionals is a bad idea because the cost of making a mistake in the healthcare industry is much more dire than the cost of making a mistake in a job like being a cashier. You could argue that people would be able to compare different options and choose the best, but the problem is that most people don't have enough knowledge/time about healthcare/medicine to make a knowledgable decision or reasonably compare different options and will choose whatever is most convenient for them (location, health insurance coverage, etc). Especially when you consider that most trips to the doctors are very time sensitive and people aren't going to be sitting around doing in depth research well they are in pain or suffering from a serious illness. This is why healthcare does not follow many of the classic economic models where consumers have decent knowledge about their purchase. For example, if I want bread I have a good idea how much bread costs and if I feel it is too expensive it's not a matter of life or death for me to not get bread. The consumer has much less power in buying healthcare then they do in buying food products, because of the price inelasticity. The reason surgeries also cost hundreds of thousands of dollars is because of all the administrative paper work and hoops people have to jump through to collect benefits from insurance companies. You can argue that a gov system would be more inefficient, but insurance companies already operate in an extremely inefficient fashion and spend tons of money on administrative costs associated with trying to deny or limit people's benefits. My point is that healthcare isn't going to be perfect in either a pure free market or a single payer system because of the unique qualities of healthcare. A vast majority of major countries and studies done about single payer systems have shown that it involves less paperwork and administrative costs than dealing with private health care providers. Of course it could be different in the US but the evidence doesn't seem to back the notion that single payer systems increase health care costs.