Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke shared some thoughts on health care reform from “an economist’s perspective” today. He was short on proposals, but did suggest that we concentrate our attention on improving the cost-effectiveness of our health care system:
From the economist’s perspective, the question of whether we are spending too much on health care cannot ultimately be answered by looking at total expenditures relative to GDP or the federal budget. Rather, the question, whatever we spend, is whether we are getting our money’s worth.
He suggested that in our current system, decisions were made with the idea that “someone else will pay for it,” either the government, or private insurance.
“The best way to reduce the fiscal burdens of health care is to deliver cost-effective health care throughout the entire system,” Bernanke said.
You can read the full text of his remarks here.
Challenges for Health-Care Reform [FED]
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
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@johnva:
Medicare and Medicaid are run more efficiently than most private insurers
bzzzzzzzt.
[www.pnhp.org]
Medicaid patients were statistically significantly less likely to receive short-term (less than 24 hours) medications and to undergo invasive cardiac procedures than patients covered by HMO and private insurance. They also had higher mortality rates (2.9% vs. 1.2%; adjusted odds ratio, 1.33; 95% CI, 1.08 to 1.63).
They ARE NOT fiscal disasters, at least not in comparison to private insurance.
Show me one private insurance company that is anywhere near as fiscally insolvent as Medicaire and I will show you a private insurance company that is no longer in business. If not for the federal subsidy, Medcair/Medcaid would be a bankrupt company.
They are just costing an increasing amount of money because healthcare costs are soaring. But it’s not because they’re badly run.
Bzzzzt again.
[www.ncpa.org]
“One estimate states that fraud and abuse cost Medicare and Medicaid about $33 billion each year. Worse, it’s ridiculously easy to cheat the federal government and taxpayers out of millions of Medicare and Medicaid dollars, according to three convicted felons appearing yesterday before a Senate panel.
“
[www.nytimes.com]
You won’t have CEO’s converting those insane premiums into a cushy payday.
@IamNotToddDavis: Your link shows that the main problem with Medicaid is that doctors won’t accept it due to low reimbursement rates. If the government were the only game in town, doctors wouldn’t have a choice.
Also you need to compare apples to apples. Medicare and Medicaid have much more unhealthy patient populations than most private insurers, who don’t want those people. That’s the main reason Medicare exists. The reason private insurers don’t have as high costs, as I ALREADY SAID, is that they can dump expensive patients.
And you don’t think a lot of fraud against private insurers exists???
@johnva:”Your link shows that the main problem with Medicaid is that doctors won’t accept it due to low reimbursement rates. If the government were the only game in town, doctors wouldn’t have a choice. “
That’s not at all what it shows. The report notes Doctors are not happy when they get a Medicare patient because they will not get paid the same amount as a privately insured for the same service, not that they refuse to accept it. But I am beginning to realize that this is a waste of time to attempt to explain. Your argument is that because there is a profit-motive for Doctors (SHOCK! HORRORS!) the government should step in and “level the playing field”.
This is income redistribution, plain and simple. If the government were the only game in town we would all be medicare patients, and pardon the french but F*ck that noise.
Medicare and Medicaid have much more unhealthy patient populations than most private insurers, who don’t want those people. That’s the main reason Medicare exists.
And I’m all for subsidizing this and other social safety net programs for those who can’t afford it for precisely that reason. They can’t afford it. Great, wonderful, peace and love. It sucks that these programs are going broke at a breakneck pace, but at least it’s available for now.
The reason private insurers don’t have as high costs, as I ALREADY SAID, is that they can dump expensive patients.
Huh? So if a patient gets too expensive they can just dump them without any penalty?
Really? Right out the door? Are you sure?
And you don’t think a lot of fraud against private insurers exists???
I do, but it’s a fraction of what Government programs endure.
@johnva: umm no they simply have bigger pools to make in the denominator
if an insurance company had 10x as much volume of business, they’d appear to have lower overhead costs too.
secondly, real world companies are bothered by this thing called solvency, which the govt is not concerned with. medicare is set to go belly up in 2017 i believe?
REAL EFFICIENT.
i call “insolvency” a fiscal disaster. in which case every private insurer in existence today passes that test, and medicare does not.
@SadSam: wasn’t that the same 60 minutes piece that said danes score highly on these “happiness” surveys simply because they don’t know any better?
the allegory of the cave
@IamNotToddDavis:
[i]Huh? So if a patient gets too expensive they can just dump them without any penalty?
Really? Right out the door? Are you sure?[/i]
Bzzzzzzzt!!!!
@ironchef: Tarsha Harris is currently suing the crap out of Blue Cross via The Quisenberry Law Firm. Blue Cross broke the law and should be held accountable. And most likely they will be. I am not defending Insurance companies that break the law, but no system is out there that will prevent this from happening. And most certainly not a government run system.
@IamNotToddDavis:
I’m not against income redistribution. In fact, I’m for it. That’s why I support what I support. Duh.
As for “dumping patients”, one thing they do is raise your rates the next year to such a level that many people can’t afford it. They know that a lot of people will cancel if they do that. (I’m talking about the individual insurance market). Many insurers create new “plans” every year. If they decide you don’t qualify for the new plan, you’re stuck with the old one (which they have to keep offering by law in many states). But now the old one is a riskier pool, because all the people healthy enough to qualify have moved on to the “new” pool, and the old one just contains the people who didn’t qualify. So they raise everyone in the old pool’s rates. The intent is to “fire” expensive customers by making things unaffordable to them. Insurance companies are expert at negotiating state laws in order to legally get rid of people who are unprofitable.
@nedzeppelin: I agree that the reason Medicare is more efficient is because it has a larger pool. That’s one of the biggest problems with private insurance…it divides up the pool and duplicates administrative overhead across many insurance companies.
As for Medicare insolvency, I still think you’re not getting what I’m saying. The reason why private insurers are not going bankrupt despite constantly rising costs is because they are “innovative” in finding new and creative ways to get only profitable customers and get rid of the unprofitable ones. You can’t compare the two, because the goal of the government programs is to make sure that everyone has decent care. That is not the goal of insurance companies, being for-profit entities. They are just intended to turn a profit, and aren’t concerned with covering everyone. No one expects Medicare to be “profitable”. And if Medicare is insolvent, the solution is simple: cut benefits or raise taxes.
@IamNotToddDavis: Seriously your whole objection to something like single-payer seems entirely faith-based. There isn’t a huge difference between a government insurer and a private insurer, except in how they’re funded. You just object to government because you object to government, and that’s your ideology. The status quo is NOT more efficient. We pay more for medical care than any other country and get less for our money than 35 or so other places.
For all the freshman econ 101 being thrown around in these comments, let’s take a deep breath and remember the concept of “market failure.” Healthcare is a classic.
To paraphrase the old Pogo cartoon, we’ve met the enemy and it is us. Or rather, it’s our exaggerated expectations of the healthcare system and providers’ bad incentives to sell us all what we (or rather, our insurance companies, with the right diagnostic coding in the computer) are willing to buy. Got a twisted ankle or a sore knee? Nobody will accept a simple and cheap x-ray; we want an MRI. Feeling blue? Forget prescriptions for free lifestyle changes, or even some sessions of talk therapy; you can get a year’s worth of mood-enancers for just 5 bucks a co-pay. We have virtually inelastic demand when it comes to our health – and virtually zero information about medicine and the appropriate diagnoses and treatments we may need.
We want a pill, a patch, an easy-breezy fix, the latest and greatest diagnostic tools. And we want it now, because our friend/aunt/co-worker got it, so we’re entitled to get it, too. Sadly, unless it’s going to do us more harm than good, our doctors are going to give it to us because they have every incentive in the world to do so. The more tests they do, the more scrips they write, the more procedures they perform, the more they get paid. Until we can readjust our demands, (or face the “true” cost of medicines, treatments, etc.) – and until doctors and drug co’s are fully transparent about pricing, and risk/benefit realtionships, there’s total market failure and virtually zero relationship between supply, demand, and price with healthcare.
Which gets to my punch line: Single payer health care now. Seriously. The market is busted every bit as much as say, a private market for automobile and driver licensing (to borrow the DMV analogy) would be. Cut out the for-profit insurance bureaucrats and their mob-like “skim” – because, in reality, a “private” bureaucrat simply can’t be all that much better than old Patty and Selma at the DMV. Besides, the profit maximizing duties owed to private shareholders/investors is inherently in conflict with the “public” nature of much of health care. Put us all in the same pool (with reasonable copays to limit abuse) – more players means more shared risk and lower costs per participant. I’d imagine that whatever “tax increase” would be associated with this would wind up costing less than many people pay for private insurance now, given that making everyone participate in the system means those of us who currently pay for insurance wouldn’t be subsidizing the “uninsured” like we do now. Frankly, I’m amazed that companies like GM, Ford, or others with massive healthcare costs and retiree liabillity aren’t begging for this.
@johnva: You said it much more concisely than long-winded me.
/returns to munching dinner and procrastinating
@cyclade: “Concise” isn’t the word I would use to describe my posts! But good post.
I actually remember reading about one of the automaker CEOs (or one of their big lobbyists) recently talking about how our lack of universal healthcare is hurting their competitiveness. They are starting to make noise about it. I expect that that’s when something will actually get done – when all the big corporations start screaming for it. Then the Republicans won’t see it as so much in their interest to torpedo it any longer. I don’t know if we’ll get true single-payer, but I’m hopeful we can do better than we are now.
@IamNotToddDavis: a single payer system would improve things dramatically.
I’m not convinced the private system we have now is working, considering how hard it is for someone to get health insurance. And once you are denied coverage by one carrier, it is impossible to get picked up by another. That’s a fact.
@johnva: So you are for income redistribution. It’s refreshing to hear someone admit that at least. I don’t agree with you in principle primarily because I don’t believe that income can ever be distributed from one group to the other in a fair and orderly fashion, not to mention the fact that income is not a limited number. Theoretically there is no ceiling to what one can earn, nor should there be. Ironically the part you listed about “dumping” already happened here in Tennessee, except it was the government program that did the dumping- Tenncare.
You just object to government because you object to government, and that’s your ideology.
No, I object to the idea that “the Gubmint” can be more efficient than the free market.
@cyclade: “. I’d imagine that whatever “tax increase” would be associated with this would wind up costing less than many people pay for private insurance now, given that making everyone participate in the system means those of us who currently pay for insurance wouldn’t be subsidizing the “uninsured” like we do now.”
Maybe I read that wrong, but how would making us all pay under the same umbrella make any difference to what we currently subsidize? The people who can’t afford health care now will be under the same system regardless if I am under a private or government run system. You are just changing who handles the money.
It’s amazing the faith that everyone has in government when it comes to healthcare, despite all evidence to the contrary.
@IamNotToddDavis: One reason it would lower overall costs is that the people who are currently paying nothing and being “free riders” would be forced to pay something via taxes, even if their income is pretty low.
Oh my! The problem here is that the ones who scream the loudest haven’t a clue about how health care really works.
There are a bunch of problems with health care costs and there is no good way to fix it. It’s this endless circle of stuff that causes these problems.
Take Medicare and Medicaid. For Americans to believe that the government should pay is like believing in Santa Clause. It’s still NOT free. Taxpayers are paying and the only way to pay it is to raise taxes. It’s just a 2+2 problem.
By using Medicare, health care providers are forced to accept a set amount of dollars for care and most of the time this doesn’t always cover the cost. They then are forced to charge more to insurance companies and other consumers.
So why doesn’t it cover the cost? To begin with there are so many regulations that one can hardly keep track. You’ve got OSHA and JCAHO and Medicare and Medicaid and insurance companies and whatever else that I can’t name off the top of my head that have guidelines which must be followed. It takes a million sheets of paper for just one band-aid!
Also, what isn’t mentioned most of the time is the infinite amount of manpower, time and effort to meet these ridiculous expectations. In case no one has noticed, there is a major nursing shortage out there and no wonder! Trying to keep up with this catastrophic situation causes serious burn out. Not to mention that frivolous lawsuits is just something else to add to the mound. No one wants to do it anymore and why I still do is a mystery even to myself.
I’ve been a nurse for 19 years and have been in the health care field for 22 years and I’m here to tell you that the health care crisis is only going to get worse.
In order to lure nurses providers have to fork over more money and where do they get that money? Someone has to pay for it. I’m not going to work for free, thanks, and believe me when I say, I EARN my paycheck. I do the job of 3-4 nurses because we are never fully staffed.
This is just one area too. There are lab techs, surgical techs, people who clean instruments and the list is a mile long. All of this is just so you can be seen when you’re ill. It will never be cheap and if it ever becomes “free” then God help us because it’s going to be lousy. You’ll get the worst care, if you can even be seen because you’ll wait in lines like you’ve never waited before.
Go down to your local health department to get a glimpse of what it will be like. It should be a real eye opener.
It’s really funny because most of these comments are about regulations (government or otherwise) and clearly, more regulation IS the problem.
Geez.
I find it droll that anti-gov’t people are venting their anti-gov’t bile on a medium invented, developed and implemented by the gov’t. Then handed over to quasi-public monopolies. Neither phones nor the internet would exist without your hated “interference”.
Better start using post cards, guys, because you’re relying on Communistic technology. Otherwise, you have to admit that – yup – some things the free market doesn’t do well that society working together does.
Oh. Wait. The post office is Socialistic as well.
Err, signal flags?
Well, there are a lot of really weird things in government-sponsored healthcare in the US. An old girlfriend of mine used to work in a treatment facility for troubled teens. It was one of the highest-level facilities, for the really “bad” kids. Cost per child: $580/day. They probably had around 60 kids in there.
And that was back in the mid 90s.
The Federal Government is incapable of doing a cost-benefit analysis because in government health care the answer is political not practical. Would any sane human being pay $580/day to treat a teenager? How would you ever be able to justify spending $211,700/year on what basically is a teenager with extreme behavior problems.
And that’s just a ridiculous cost that I know about. Given the size of Medicare/Medicaid, there has to be more things like this.
@mannyv: Are you sure this wasn’t a facility for insured kids? Because it sounds a LOT like the ones that would pack kids in until their the last dime of their (private) insurance was maxed out, then magically declare that they were cured. Err, “cured”.
In any event, anecdotes don’t change the hard facts: single-payor systems spend a fraction compared to us. Medicare spends 1/10 compared to private, FOR-PROFIT* insurance companies.
It’s hard for some to wrap their heads around, and simple truth sometimes are the hardest to accept, I realize. But try.
* “For-Profit” – THINK about it: would their role be inflationary or deflationary to providing health care? Yeesh!
@Trai_Dep: the anti government crowd has been DORMANT for the last 7 years, giving Bush a blank check to grow that government an extra 30%.
So I find much of their rant a bit hypocritical and selectively prosecutorial.
Just wait until they get a democrat in the white house…then they will whine like they did during the clinton years.
Maybe this has already been said, but I’m not going through 120 comments to check first.
You want to know one of the big reasons healthcare costs are rising? Prescription drugs.
I work for a (non-profit) insurance company, and our biggest expense is prescription drugs. The name brand drugs are so ridiculously expensive, that we conducted a 6 month trial where we would pay 100% of the cost of any generic drug prescriptions. It was cheaper for us to pay 100% of a generic, vs even 40% of a name brand.
Before we jump into universal health care, I think a lot could be fixed just by implementing government price controls on prescription drugs.
If you bring down drug costs, you make health care more affordable to everyone.
@ironchef: As a conservative talk show listener, pretty much daily, I can tell you that we (conservatives/republicans) are fully aware of Bush and his spending and increasing the Government. And we are not happy about it. Nobody is out there thinking Bush is a true conservative. I like Bush on some policies, but it’s obvious that he is not truly a social conservative. He is just barely more conservative then John McCain.
@ironchef: If a democrat wins the white house, I would be sleep easy. Unfortunately, there are no democrats in the general election. A moderate and a socialist are running.
@Bladefist: The fact that you listen to conservative talk shows daily explains a lot about why you have so many misconceptions.
@johnva: Well that’s not completely fair. He also watches Saturday Night Live skits to learn about what’s really happening in the world. And Drudge. See: a totally balanced media diet!
@Bender: Also worth mentioning the GOP give-away to Big Pharma: making it illegal for the Federal gov’t to use its size to negotiate cheaper prices. Note it wasn’t “just” Bush that did it, but the wide swath of the Republican Party. So the “Oh noes, Bush led us astray” meme is as patently false as the “Oh noes, we really want small gov’t, honest!” meme. Or the “Oh noes, we hate deficits” meme, or… Well you get the idea.
Hmm, add those two paras together and you get wildly misinformed and wildly destructive to our nation! Oh, and hypocritical. But we knew that.
@Bladefist: talk shows are just talk. no action.
I watched the whole GOP go along with Bush in lock step. We all came to the conclusion that the small government talk is just a platform to get elected and once you get into power, all that stuff you promised gets flushed down the toilet.
Let me remind you the contract with America…
FIRST, require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress;
SECOND, select a major, independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud or abuse;
THIRD, cut the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third;
FOURTH, limit the terms of all committee chairs;
FIFTH, ban the casting of proxy votes in committee;
SIXTH, require committee meetings to be open to the public;
SEVENTH, require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase;
EIGHTH, guarantee an honest accounting of our Federal Budget by implementing zero base-line budgeting.
1. THE FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT: A balanced budget/tax limitation amendment and a legislative line-item veto to restore fiscal responsibility to an out- of-control Congress, requiring them to live under the same budget constraints as families and businesses.
2. THE TAKING BACK OUR STREETS ACT: An anti-crime package including stronger truth-in- sentencing, “good faith” exclusionary rule exemptions, effective death penalty provisions, and cuts in social spending from this summer’s “crime” bill to fund prison construction and additional law enforcement to keep people secure in their neighborhoods and kids safe in their schools.
3. THE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT: Discourage illegitimacy and teen pregnancy by prohibiting welfare to minor mothers and denying increased AFDC for additional children while on welfare, cut spending for welfare programs, and enact a tough two-years-and-out provision with work requirements to promote individual responsibility.
4. THE FAMILY REINFORCEMENT ACT: Child support enforcement, tax incentives for adoption, strengthening rights of parents in their children’s education, stronger child pornography laws, and an elderly dependent care tax credit to reinforce the central role of families in American society.
5. THE AMERICAN DREAM RESTORATION ACT: A S500 per child tax credit, begin repeal of the marriage tax penalty, and creation of American Dream Savings Accounts to provide middle class tax relief.
6. THE NATIONAL SECURITY RESTORATION ACT: No U.S. troops under U.N. command and restoration of the essential parts of our national security funding to strengthen our national defense and maintain our credibility around the world.
7. THE SENIOR CITIZENS FAIRNESS ACT: Raise the Social Security earnings limit which currently forces seniors out of the work force, repeal the 1993 tax hikes on Social Security benefits and provide tax incentives for private long-term care insurance to let Older Americans keep more of what they have earned over the years.
8. THE JOB CREATION AND WAGE ENHANCEMENT ACT: Small business incentives, capital gains cut and indexation, neutral cost recovery, risk assessment/cost-benefit analysis, strengthening the Regulatory Flexibility Act and unfunded mandate reform to create jobs and raise worker wages.
9. THE COMMON SENSE LEGAL REFORM ACT: “Loser pays” laws, reasonable limits on punitive damages and reform of product liability laws to stem the endless tide of litigation.
10. THE CITIZEN LEGISLATURE ACT: A first-ever vote on term limits to replace career politicians with citizen legislators.
So how did you do?
Term limits LOL
Fiscal responsibility LOL
Fixing Social Security LOL
Taking back our streets LOL
Reducing the size of govt? LOL.
Honest Accounting? LOL
None of it actually materialized. Well maybe the part about UN command of American forces. Instead you replaced it with the Iraqi government dictating the schedule of American troops staying in Iraq.
You only have a finite amount of money before you start either printing money (inflation) or have to borrow money (thanks China). Considering only ONE year when Clinton was president the US actually managed to have a zero sum deficit that year, and the debt is now so high it will only be a few more years until all taxes actually go to paying the interest on foreign loans, how much do you REALLY think you have to spend on a national health care plan???
@johnva: Now you’re starting to piss me off. You’re spoon fed BS from CNN, CBS, NBC, NPR, etc all day and night. I listen to someone on the other side, now I am the crazy one? Oh excuse me for wanting to hear the other side of the argument. I guess I’ll sit there like a zealot and watch Larry King and Keith Olberman explain it to me.
You keep getting your politics spoon fed, and I’ll listen to people who actually do a little bit of research. I don’t have any misconceptions about jack shit. You are the socialist. Not me. I respect the Constitution, and the original Government job description. Not you. Smart people listen to both sides. You wouldn’t believe the number of democrats/liberals that call into Rush Limbaugh and debate with him. Those are the democrats who are listening, learning, and have the balls to call him up and debate an issue, while you hide in the background and speak down about that which you do not know.
@ironchef: I’m a conservative before a republican. Also my part affiliation is based on principals. If the GOP continue down this road, I’ll have to change my icon. But I think it’s just a momentary lapse of reason.
@Bladefist: The problem is not “listening to someone on the other side”. The problem is avidly listening to people who are known propagandists. I’ve listened to Limbaugh before, and I know that he’s not a reliable source of information. Usually because I’m already informed about what he’s talking about, and know where the errors are. Don’t assume that I just believe what I hear in some other media that you imagine is “liberal”. I think virtually all of the mainsteam media is full of liars, and I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t believe a word any of them say unless they point me to a primary source where I can research an issue myself and independently confirm it. No one should believe anything that any media source says without doing their own research.
And the GOP has been on a bad road where their stated principles diverge from their actions for at least 25 years. St. Ronnie really kicked that trend into high gear.
@gibbersome:
“”I think you’ve raised a very good point. Subsidize medical education to lower the burden on students. Also reign in malpractice insurance, better hours for residence (so they’re not working 36 hour shifts).
As it stands now, most doctors graduating come from wealthy backgrounds. I’m in a medical school and there are barely a dozen students out of a class of 160 that come from lower income families; hence, most have no clue what it is like to live without adequate health care”"
I think you’d be suprised at how some of the people you think you are wealthy are paying for their medical education. I knew a lot of people who were struggling to get by but still kept up the appearance of being well off due to parental subsidies. Most people do not talk about their education debt and accept it is a given.
The average medical graduate is 160,000 in debt. That is reality. I know people who are a quarter of a million dollars and up in debt. That is absolutely insane. When you consider the ridiculous sacrifices that doctors make to get to where they are, and still they face increasing cuts from medicaid/medicare as well as censure, criticism, and belittling from everyone they know-(Trust me, I’ve read enough malicious doctor bashing comments on this site, which I consider to composed of ‘informed’ consumers)
Currently, doctors have their hands tied by insurance companies, lawyers, and the government. Bureaucracy and greed are crippling our nation’s healthcare system.
I’ve had the socialized medicine debate multiple times and I’ll say it again…it won’t happen because there is too much money being made in this country by lawyers, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and a host of others. You think United Health Care is just going to roll over and play dead? You think all the pharma CEOs are going to watch trillions of dollars slip out of their grasp? You think the med mal lawyers are going to give up their bentleys without a fight? Dream on.
Finally, please someone, name me a government program that has, on a nationwide scale, been run efficiently, cost effectively, all while providing satisfactory comprehensive service. Medicine is not like McDonald’s. If they mess up your order, no one dies.
@johnva: Disagree he is propagandist.
And I never used the word Avid. If listening to Rush on my way to Sonic is avid, then I guess I’m a Rush Zealot.
@Bladefist:
There’s a better term for Rush listeners:
[www.huffingtonpost.com]
@ironchef: I wish consumerist would write a program to comment for you.
After each article posted, it automatically generates an idiotic statement. I could help w/ the programming.
For Trai_dep I would do something similar, but have BabelFish convert it to Chinese, then take the results, port it back to English, then Post it again.
@ironchef:
Notice how he skipped the facts you laid out, then ignored the question, then launched an ad homonym, unrelated attack?
That’s the Conservative ‘bot script in a nutshell.
…Wait, something’s missing. Lemme debug for a few secs.
Don’tYouLoveAmerica? SmallerGovernmentLessspendingNoTaxesLapelPin! LiberalMedia! LiberalMedia! LiberalMedia!
There: GOPBot v1.01. Fixed!
Another libtard vs. libertardian argument. Great.
Anyone manage to respond to ironchef‘s clear explanation of why the free market can’t fix healthcare, or did we all just fall back on complaining about governmental inefficiency and complaining about the nanny state?
Well, the thing is, health care isn’t something handled well by classical economic rules. That’s where it breaks.
Most people are cognizant that some things, the market’s the optimal mechanism, and others, not. It’s a reasonable position to take. This is why there’s little argument from our side about Ironchef’s point that you raised.
Why the other side skipped the excellent points that he raised, see the steps involved in my Conservo-Bot 1.01, above. I’m confident it explains much in that regard.
@Mr. Gunn: I hope you aren’t referring to me as the libertardian. I am not.
I’ve responded to Ironchef probably over 100 times. I’m tired of it. I don’t owe it to anyone. This comment thread is well over 100 comments and dead, so very few will see my hard work of explaining.
If you see my lack of interest in responding as a loss in the debate, or that I am speechless, thats fine. I don’t feel compelled to educate you either.
I don’t live in my parents basement like some of these people, I have bigger fish to fry.