| People seem to believe that a system is a fuction of a set of rules and initial conditions and you can modify such and arrive at different results. For example you think a free market enonomy results in a functional health care system and therefore if you institute it you get the desired result. A system isn't a blank slate it has all sorts of existing issues and players who benefit from the way things are. Currently lots of players are profiting from the way things are. If you removed all regulations things would start out mostly the same and players would naturally tilt things so they could give out less money and take more in. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that individual actors would act to ensure the greater good for society even if in the large scale this would be beneficial to society as a whole including them. A manager at a firm thinks first of what benefits himself, then his firm, then his customers, then society as a whole. People that put aside profits for the greater profit of humanity are actually selected against by the economic principles you adore. The health care insurance model exists to help people pool and save expenses for rare misadventures like breaking your leg. Its unclear how in any rational world this applies to people that are signifigantly ill and need ongoing treatment with known values. If you knew you were going to crash twice this year and every year thereafter what would your expected insurance rate be and how would the insurance model help you pay for that? |