Posted on 11/13/2006 12:54:14 PM PST by SmithL
Show me where it allows that in the Constitution and I'll be all for it.
If I wanted to have somebody else (besides the government) take a huge chunk of my paycheck without working for it, I would have gotten married.
That question is so off the wall that it is hard to take it seriously although I know you intend it as such to make a point. The only way for the government not to buy military equipment from private business is either have no government military but instead to hire one. How smart is that. The other option is for the government to go into business itself manufacturing military equipment. How efficient would that be?
Defending the country is a Constitutional responsibility and I am perfectly fine with the government buying drugs, on a bid basis, for government hospitals like the Veterans Administration.
I am not for the government negotiating prices for drugs sold to the general public even if the government is paying for some of it.
And why is that?
I can go along with reasonable pension protections, but the rest is pure poison (socialism).
Anything the rats try to do legislatively to pay off their union cronies must be balanced by Republicans with improved "sunshine" laws and strict accountability on union political donations along with "opt out" provisions for workers who don't want to pay that portion of their union dues that goes to support Democrats and other enemies of capitalism and traditional American values.
Noramlly I tend to agree with you, but I think government, federal government should stick to doing the things that the Constitution enumerates and very little more. Dadly the Federal Government has taken all power unto itself and now we are getting screwed paying for it all.
For the reasons I have already stated!
Medicare is here to stay. Why the government should not negotiate how much it costs?
If the government negotiates drug prices it is all of a sudden even more deeply and intimately involved in our lives. Once it is involved in price setting, which is what that is all about no matter the guise, it then distorts the free market. It also establishes itself more deeply into the health care provider industry, just one small step away from national health care. If they are handling something so large as the drug benefits for seniors, why not let them administer it all?
Central planning, a key element of collectivism, is a replacement for the free market choices that are fundamental to a free enterprise system. Being from Poland you have recent experience in that so you should know better. Communist Russia and Communist China are converting to a version of free enterprise because it is the best economic system. We, the USA, are unfortunately moving in the opposite direction.
You can't have the government give you things and still maintain freedom of choice. That is not the way government and bureaucracy work. If they are going to provide it they are going to control it. Of course you get to pay for it in higher and higher taxes and less and less freedom.
Don't bet on Medicare being here forever. It is going broke and the left will try to cover that by going to national health care, which will be even more expensive. They will then try to control the costs by rationing care and allocating resources through central planning. Because of the high cost of government programs they will have to pay hospitals and doctors and nurses, etc., less. They will become demoralized and leave the industry, unless the government prevents them, or start giving half hearted care using shoddy equipment.
If you are too young to have lived through Poland's Communist past, or if you know nothing of health care under Communism in such places as Romania and Bulgaria, then you should educate yourself. I am sure there are many of your acquaintances that will inform you.
I grew up in Communist Poland. My experience is that Poland under Communism had sufficient basic medical care. Advanced quality care was hard to get.
Taking into account relative poverty of Poland, the medical care was quite decent. Basic care is what makes the most of difference. In proportion to the costs Poles were getting more bang for the buck than Americans get.
For an answer, let's turn to public choice theory.
Let's say the first pill cost a pharmaceutical company 300 million dollars to make and each subsequent pill costs 50 cents. We can quibble about the exact dollar amounts, but the larger point is that the pharmaceutical industry has huge fixed costs and low variable costs.
Let's say we have a medicine that is taken almost exclusively by senior citizens. Now that we have prescription drugs paid for by Medicare, the result is that the government is essentially a single buyer.
Let's say we have a drug that has been on the market a few years. A senator wants to show that he cares about senior citizens. He demands that the company sell it for a dollar a pill.
The company still covers its variable costs by doing so, so it would continue to provide the same amount of pills in the marketplace. Senior citizens win for now. The government pays far less than it otherwise would.
The pharmaceutical company realizes, however, that it's a waste of money to do research on future products for the elderly, as the government is just going to force it to be sold for a low price. Ten years later, no new pills are coming on the market.
By this point, the senator is safely retired.
Countries all over the world have demanded that pharmaceutical companies sell their products at rates that don't cover the fixed costs. Do you think our politicians are too noble and farsighted to do so? Just like politicians everywhere else, our politicians are concerned with winning the next election. Therefore, we need to throw restraints on what they can or can't do. Having government pay market rates for drugs is one good restraint.
Having government pay market rates for drugs is one good restraint.
Yet, even that distorts the market because it makes the government the consumer rather than the patient. That dampens competition because the patient pays the same low price regardless of what the government pays. Therefore, there is no need for the drug companies to lower the price.
So, typically, what does a socialist do to mediate a mistake? He makes another to exacerbate the first. In this case, to correct the problem described above, they want to put competition back in the game by having the government negotiate the price of drugs. Government being what it is, a bureaucracy with the power to use force, how do you think those negotiations would go? There are two scenarios that are not readily available in the free market. One, is bribery by lobbiest. The other is threat of force such as price fixing. There is no competition between a seller and one buyer.
With the ability to use force the government can set the price and make the seller produce and sell at that price. The government can even eliminate a decision by the drug company not to sell. They can force it.
That doesn't happen with a free enterprise system. It only happens under central government control.
No argument. I would prefer the Federal government get out of the health business altogether, with the States taking over the responsibility of helping the hard-luck cases.
Perhaps charity could cover the hard-luck cases, although I would support the States doing it if charity doesn't have the resources. By "hard-luck cases", I'm referring to cases where people simply don't have the resources to pay for health care, such as an old person with health problems that would make them uninsurable in a private system.
Since the country at this point is unlikely to see the advantages of the government getting out of health care, we are stuck with Medicare. If we must have Federally funded health care, we should limit the amount of Federal intervention in the market as much as we can.
Agreed. The U.S. however was always structured by the Founders...and the first Administration...George Washington and his Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton to have an internal free market and an external tariff wall to promote unity, preventing foreign interst disruption thereto, and a solvent government that could afford a national military.
With the unprecedented attacks on national unity by the extremely extremist idealogues who are heedless of the real risk of voter rejection of even trade reciprocity [fair trade] looming...the whirlwind has been sown and is apparently about to be reaped.
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