[AnthonyMouse]

When you define "free market" as "absence of government regulation" then you can get whatever result you want, because you can build something that looks like a government inside it, not call it a government, and have it do the thing you need a government to do. And then if you get one of those things which is doing the bad things governments do, you do call it a government and it isn't a free market anymore.

The lesson from this is not "free markets are bad," it's "simplistic ideologies are useless."

We know that private actors are bad at some things, like funding basic research and building roads and utilities. We also know that governments are bad at some things, like making consumer products. So let the government build the roads and let GE make the washing machines.

The worst alternative is to have the government do half of something. This is the US healthcare system. Single payer has problems, but it works. The complete absence of government in healthcare would have different problems but would also work. What we have doesn't work. It's a corrupt mechanism for funneling public money into drug companies.

Here's the test for whether the government should do something: Does it make sense for the government to pay for this and then give it away for absolutely no money whatsoever to every citizen of the country? If not, the government shouldn't do it. Notice that the answer for healthcare is then not obvious, but the thing we have is not a valid answer.