With regard to healthcare:
- Everyone should have the best, especially if you can't afford it and even if you don't need it.
- Government should pay for it, even if government can't afford it.
- Government should control it so private sector competition can't undercut the government.
- Prices should be artificially low so that government can appear to affort it and at the same time appear to its constituents to be fighting the good fight against the evil privateer seeking profit. (After all, NO ONE should make a profit on heath care... that's imoral! )
The net result is that hospitals that eak out a living on Medicare/Medical payments are living on artifically low incomes; can't afford the latest equipment; provide services that a paying customer would otherwise avoid; and are often the only game in town since the artificial business conditions disuade competition.
Many of these same ills stem from "overinsurance" in the private sector as well. Anytime you give your market power over to another entity, you are no longer in control of your best interests. Since we've given over our health care market power to the government and private insurers, we no longer are individually in control of our best interests. We get what they give...
...and we lose what they take away.
The budget crisis is only the flock coming home to roost in the coop we've built for ourselves. With the clarity of hindsight, it's hard to see how it could have turned out any other way.
Many, or most, rural areas are facing declining populations and tax bases because their economies are dying. Without government support their towns, along with their hospitals, would have died long ago.
Does society have an interest in preserving at least some of those places, over and above what the market dictates?
I don't know.