I'd be in trouble if I lived in Italy

[lyman]

Years ago (20?) I had a phone conversation with an HR guy for a medical company that was looking for engineers, to which a buddy of mine had already gone to work. The guy said something, in passing, that stuck with me then, and which has been said many times since, but really hasn't sunk in as far as it should. He pointed out that people are always going to pay whatever it takes to get better, so that makes health care a great field to get into (from the perspective of making a profit). The flip side of that is that it is an open-ended (and thus ultimately unstable) spiral of new treatments and higher costs, for incrementally smaller returns.

In the 1950's for example, to pick a moment in time, health care costs were limited by the fact that there was only so much they could sell people. There weren't fancy MRI chambers or dialysis machines or exotic drugs. And the business of delivery was largely through non-profit institutions.

If our patchwork, for-profit system gets blown apart by this crisis, then there is a pretty good chance that it will be rebuilt differently afterwards. Rebuilt in a way that allows it to withstand the next pandemic. We'll have examples to study elsewhere in the world.

you are assuming that if our current system does get blown apart, the .gov will step in and make our 'new' system on the Euro model,


not likely to happen,

too many hands in the till (as your conversation 20yrs ago mentioned in a way)

between Big Pharma, Big Insurance, and the corruptions in .gov (medicare/caid) the system may change,, but doubtful in that direction

[Vern Humphrey]

you are assuming that if our current system does get blown apart, the .gov will step in and make our 'new' system on the Euro model,


not likely to happen,

too many hands in the till (as your conversation 20yrs ago mentioned in a way)

between Big Pharma, Big Insurance, and the corruptions in .gov (medicare/caid) the system may change,, but doubtful in that direction

Under the Democrats, Big Pharma, Big Insurance, etc., will become subservient to Big Government. This is called "fascism."

[jdmcgrath]

Government is the last domino to fall, unless someone prefers a different order. If the chain gets rebuilt from that last domino, then heck yeah it needs built for the next pandemic, which means not squeezing everything for efficiency. And government will have to make that stick because industry has a short memory. Calling that facism is just not knowing what words mean.

[lyman]

Under the Democrats, Big Pharma, Big Insurance, etc., will become subservient to Big Government. This is called "fascism."

they may try, but just like obamacare, the change will not be what they want , (unless of course (need some tinfoil headgear?) it was designed to fail)

too much money to be made (capitolism) and lost by too many corporations to have them too subservient ,,,

[Vern Humphrey]

Government is the last domino to fall, unless someone prefers a different order. If the chain gets rebuilt from that last domino, then heck yeah it needs built for the next pandemic, which means not squeezing everything for efficiency. And government will have to make that stick because industry has a short memory. Calling that facism is just not knowing what words mean.

Facism is the "Corporate State" where the economy is subservient to government.

From "The 25 Points of the Nazi Party":

16 We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle-class, the immediate communalisation of large stores which will be rented cheaply to small trades people, and the strongest consideration must be given to ensure that small traders shall deliver the supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities.

[Roadkingtrax]

Facism is the "Corporate State" where the economy is subservient to government.

From "The 25 Points of the Nazi Party":

16 We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle-class, the immediate communalisation of large stores which will be rented cheaply to small trades people, and the strongest consideration must be given to ensure that small traders shall deliver the supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities.

Which step gives multibillion-dollar corporations, that waste their tax savings on stock buy backs, loans from the taxpayers?

[togor]

Vernon routinely fails to put those 25 points in an appropriately German context, preferring to try to twist them to a 21st century American context. We are literally talking over 90 years ago now when those points were produced.

The 25 points were a grab bag, roughly on a par with a Republican Party Convention Platform, of campaign talking points. Point 16 per his rendering represents an appeal to the German middle class of small shop owners, tradesmen, and factory owners who were hard hit in the economic collapse following the Great War.*

Vernon's phrase phrase "economy subservient to government" as a marker for facism is so ludicrous that I can scarcely believe someone actually posted it. By that reasoning, the FDA are the New Brown Shirts who limit how much formaldehyde industry can put in bottled milk or baby formula, or how much benzene can be in asthma inhalers. The horror of it all!!

(*German shop laws are still rather extensive, and serve the purpose of keeping smaller shop keepers in business. The state also dedicates resources to helping small manufacturers find export markets, an industrial policy that is unthinkable to American conservatives, who deride it as interference with the private sector.)