If the market is sufficiently competitive, yes, I trust corporations more than governments.

Competition naturally degrades over time as companies go out of business and consolidate. And capital interests fight tooth and nail against large monopolies being split back up. Its more or less a miracle that it’s ever happened at all and it would be naive to think it’ll ever happen again.

If the market is sufficiently competitive, yes, I trust corporations more than governments.

I don’t think that’s true. I think you’re making an assumption that the payer has an incentive to reduce costs, but I really don’t think that’s the case. What they do have is a lot of power over pricing, and while that could be used to force producers to reduce costs, it can also be used to shift costs onto taxpayers in exchange for favors from the companies providing the services.

Do you think a more direct “medical patient union” would work? Skipping a government intermediary?

socialized healthcare

I mean, I’d prefer socialized healthcare over single payer. Single payer for me is merely an acceptable middle ground. As would having a proper public option next to private care (though admittedly that would slowly erode from lobbying).

Its not really that fey is a slur (IDK if it is and I’m bi) but that he said “That’s the problem” afterward. Like, saying its unfortunate that hes the gay dude of the power rangers and that the gay guy got named after him is a problem. Its a very “your dad is kind of homophobic” level but its still shitty.

@[email protected] @[email protected]

non-problematic

I mean, I don’t hate Bryan Cranston. In fact I still like him a lot… but I have some bad news.

Now he at least apologized for it and seems earnestly sorry. And doesn’t even remember saying it. But I think this goes to show that basically no one is “non-problematic”.

Not a word I like to hear when it comes to government. The more power you give it, the more likely some idiot will come along and abuse it. Look at Trump, the only reason he can absolutely wreck the economy w/ tariffs is because Congress gave him that power and refuses to curtail it.

So you’d rather give power to corporations. Who definitely abuse their power. Rather than a government, which at least is potentially elected.

I think governmental structures are probably outside the scope of this conversation, but I’ll at least state that the reason Trump is bad is not only that he has power. Its the lack of power that his opposition has because they utterly fail to seize it when opportunity presents itself. Again, it is all about leverage.

Sure, but they’re getting a lot less of it than they could if it was a more competitive market.

They pay obscene amounts to get decent results. I think they could get the same (or better!) results with a lot less spending if the system wasn’t rigged to be anti-competitive.

I think that this is pure conjecture. Going “full competitive” would be at best a double edged sword. A lot of money and risk is involved in highly advanced military tech. Realistically you’d see businesses crumble and merge. Naturally converging into a monopoly.

I think that only works in countries w/o a large medical devices/pharmaceutical industry, otherwise you end up with ton of lobbying and whatnot. I don’t think the total cost of healthcare would go down, it would just shift to net tax payers and healthy people. Look at the ACA, it didn’t reduce healthcare spending at all, it just shifted who pays for it, and it seems healthy people ended up spending more (to subsidize less healthy people).

To actually reduce costs, you need to make pricing as transparent as possible, and I don’t think single payer achieves that. It can be a good option in certain countries, but I don’t think it’s universally a good option.

To actually reduce costs, you increase the leverage the buyer has. Transparency in pricing would do that to a tiny degree, what would do so far better is a monopsony/single-payer system where all the buyers effectively are unionized.

Again, it always boils down to leverage.

Only have access to this account during work, so late reply.

We’re talking about IP protections, not general monopolies

It doesn’t matter, monopolization at any level has the effect I described.

Yeah, that’s not going to be abused

You’d need to elaborate I’m not clear what you mean by this.

scare away companies

There are ways to force this into not being an issue. We don’t have to suck a corporation’s dick to keep their productivity.

It’s also why the US pays an obscene amount for its military. Defense contractors absolutely fleece the government because they are generally not allowed to contract with other governments, so they expect a higher profit from their one contracted buyer.

It sounds like the military is still getting what they paid for and its worked out for them. They pay obscene amounts to get obscene results.

Single payer also applies to healthcare proposals and is generally seen as a fantastic solution to keeping healthcare prices down.

With a monopoly, you may very well be making everyone pay for the increased price gouge that comes with monopolies. Not just the customer of that particular product. It depends on the nature of the product.

If it is a component of a more common device or product, basically everyone ends up paying more (HDMI comes to mind). If its an innovation relating to a basic need and gets integrated with the majority of services, basically everyone ends up paying more. If its something that has external implications on the market or wider world that creates inefficiencies, then people functionally make less money because effect people pay more and thus long term this harms spending on a variety of products. If people can’t afford the price gouge and continue using less effective products (assuming they are even available) they likely long term spend more money to make up for the inefficiencies from that.

Monopolies damage things beyond the product that gets monopolized and merely concentrates wealth.

Regardless a subsidy is not the only alternative. That’s still thinking in terms of carrot, and you are forgetting the stick. You can also legislate mandatory R&D in budgets for large corporations based on revenue/profits just as much as you with the punishment of potentially being fined/taxed more.

But outside of that, there is also government contracts. That is, a single payer, (monopsony) generally can get fantastic results out of competing firms. Its largely a major reason why the American Military has historically benefited from such significant technological advancements for nearly a century now.

that doesn’t mean the idea doesn’t have merit.

As an incentive structure for corporations and “people” purely motivated by avarice, sure.

Most people naturally want to create and contribute as long as their needs and most basic wants are met. A monopoly as an incentive is not necessary.

Without that protection, companies would be less likely to invest in R&D.

There are many ways to motivate corporations to do R&D outside of offering them a monopoly on a silver platter. Incentives are only one half of the equation. Its really all about leverage.

Advanced it a few more levels and combine it with future robotics and AI and you have a girlfriend/boyfriend printer.

West World here we come, hope you are ready to be eradicated by a hoard of anime girl robots.

Trump is scaling back the NSA and CIA isn’t he?

Impeachment on its own I can’t bring myself to care about. It needs to come with “and removal” for it to matter.

And even then that means president Vance. It would still matter because Vance is a weaker villain lacking the full undying support of the MAGA death cult but shit would still suck, just suck in a way where there would be more hope.