[metaphorm]

> yet food prices don't rise like healthcare prices.

agricultural subsidies and price support (government agrees to purchase unsold surplus of many crops) are a huge contributor here.

also consider the externalities. the price of cheap beef is that 60 years from now a global climate crisis will cost the entire world thousands of trillions of dollars, and probably lots of lost lives as well.

[John_Innocent]

The price trends of food and healthcare couldn't be more different. There's clearly something more than agricultural subsidies at work explaining the difference, given healthcare receives many fold more subsidies. In fact, it's possible that receiving compatively little in sibsidies is one reason that food prices have declined. An even more likely explanation for the price decline of food is that consumers are incentivizes to bargain hunt when buying food, since doing so reduces what they pay, and thus a real consumer-driven market, that rewards efficiency, exists in food. In healthcare, with private/government insurance, there is no incentive for consumers to bargain hunt.

Another factor that likely contributes to the divergence in prices is that healthcare is heavily regulated while food production is not anywhere near as constrained by government mandates.

[metaphorm]

food production and distribution is also heavily regulated. the USDA inspects farms for safety and sanitation. the FDA inspects food processors for safety and sanitation and inspects food products for safety and purity (whether or not the item in the package is what it claims to be).

I don't know precisely how this compares with the degree of regulation and government intervention in the healthcare sector, but I wish you would try to make a more concrete argument with some examples or citations. as is it really seems as if you're arguing purely from ideology.

[John_Innocent]

>food production and distribution is also heavily regulated.

Nowhere near as much as healthcare. Sorry I can't provide any concrete evidence of that