Would We Accept "Single Payer" Groceries?

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Single payer groceries has been tried before. It resulted in waiting in lines for hours to receive a rather lean supply of rations and household goods. Sometimes the stores ran out of groceries before you got your turn. Also, various items were unavailable at different times, and when it was in stock, the quality varied depending on what farm or factory sent the latest shipment.

This is basically what a single payer system of anything works...


..and when you give governments that much influence in it's citizens, they won't need too much more power before they can send you to stand in other lines if you don't like their first offer...

Try getting a really good specialist to treat an unusually severe and complicated case of a medical condition. Better yet, try getting into a specialist to treat an unusually severe and complicated case of a medical condition if you don't have insurance or if insurance doesn't want to pay. The attitude of insurance companies that one doctor is just as suitable as another is bad enough without getting the government involved.

Widespread Famine.

Because the scenarios are different.

And because the health care reform is not the same model as single payer groceries anyway.

Not to mention that the republicans are behind most of the health care reform anyway, and it basically gave everyone away to insurance companies rather than fixing health care. But let's pretend that is not true.

Right, demand for healthcare is very inelastic and there are relatively few sources of healthcare (there are not hospitals on every street corner) whereas with food, although the overall demand is highly inelastic, effective substitutes (different foods or different suppliers) are readily available.

Where ever there is a ration booklet for the essentials, this is the equivalent and it is not a bad idea. Cuba has this. This is one reason why they live very well for people who "make less than a dollar a day" (hint, the ration booklet is not counted in that calculation, nor are their salaries in Cuban pesos).

That explains why so many of them try to flee to the USA...

Seriously, where do you get your news from Castro's Propaganda Network?

http://www.therealcuba.com/Page10.htm

Looks like good health care to me. That is, if you use Auschwitz as a reference standard

Economic refugees leaving a Third World country for what they think is a land of milk and honey. Happens everywhere, all the time. Trying to parlay an education that they'd never have got had they been in a neighbouring country into more money.

Guess in your mind a Concentration Camp is a vacation resort.

If the single payer is not me, then HECK YEAH!!

I'll wait in line if you're payin'.

Inelastic demand is still demand. Supply and demand are the iron laws of price determination where a market is operative. The the government has done is to remove many of the market elements from the medical services business. They choke off supply by licensing and FDA regulations which do very little to assure our health. The government goes a long way to dictate prices and in some cases forbidding procedures legally. That is why there used to be black market in abortion services.

All the government can succeed in doing is making a rough market even worse.

ruveyn

I think you are misunderstanding something. A rational businessman will maximize his total profits; if the demand is inelastic he does this by raising prices. In any case, I was only demonstrating that there are very significant differences between the market for food (inelastic demand, many sellers, most of whom are not well differentiated from their competitors) and the market for healthcare (inelastic demand, few sellers, significant differentiation between sellers) so the analogy between the two markets fail. I made no statement about whether single-payer is a good idea in either market, but the argument "It is a bad idea in market X because it is a bad idea in market Y" fails because market X is different from market Y.


The FDA provides an extremely valuable service, and they do a lot to protect our health and safety.


You're on government-subsidized healthcare, you massive hypocrite. And you probably get a higher quality of care at lower cost than I do on my private insurance.

One idea that the Canadian Green Party had was to raise the taxes of unhealthy food, and reduce the taxes of healthy food.

Unhealthy for whom though, depending on your background you require different diets.

I don't think I have heard of anyone require a diet of junk food.

Define junk food.