[bhupy]

> Many food banks will give people who want food, food. Few questions, sometimes no questions asked.

> It is rare to have similar access to health care.

No it’s not, you just described Medicaid. The Venn diagram of people that rely on food banks for food and people on Medicaid is basically a circle.

Also, it’s debatable if food banks are a superior way of getting food to poor people, vs expanding food stamps and/or a UBI which can then be used at grocery stores.

> Where did I mention nationalize?

You seem to be attacking the profit motive as a mechanism by which to provision goods and services for which there is highly inelastic demand. My point is that if you think that the way we provision food is workable, then the concept of private healthcare with subsidies (basically the Swiss model and MAdv) should be as well. In both of those models, profit and “making money” is still key.

[ddingus]

Medicaid asks a LOT of questions, the food bank does not.

You are saying a for profit system can work. You are about pricing in that scenario too. Fair enough. Given your perspective, your position on this is understandable. It is not agreeable, in my view.

Our way of provisioning food could be improved significantly. Food differs from health care significantly. Secondky, that we have food banks at all is deplorable and embarrassing.

That is all I care to entertain on that largely useless comparison.

I am attacking the profit motive in health care specifically because it carries an inherent conflict of interest and is poorly aligned with markets.

In any case, I am going to stop here for real, and just make it clear I do oppose health care as a market and do so because people do not have control over their need to participate and we all know what happens in a must buy, cannot walk away from the deal scenario: lowest value for the most possible dollars.

That comes up ALL the time and is why most of the world has removed that conflict of interest from the task of fixing sick or hurt people.

[bhupy]

> Medicaid asks a LOT of questions, the food bank does not.

Not sure what you're talking about. Medicaid is extraordinarily generous. The only questions that are asked are in determining whether one qualifies to enroll in Medicaid, but once you're in, you pay almost nothing. Even prescription drugs are capped at $75, no matter how rare or fancy.

> Food differs from health care significantly

I disagree. Both are examples of critical goods/services without which humans die. They both factor into long-term health and quality of life.

> Secondky, that we have food banks at all is deplorable and embarrassing.

I completely agree. While I've been extolling the virtues of pricing systems to provision goods and services, I've also made it clear that welfare is extremely important. The US currently extends welfare to low income people, through SNAP/EBT food stamps, Section 8 Housing vouchers, and EITC. In my opinion, there's still room to further expand the generosity of these systems, and even consolidate them into a basic income.

It's worth disentangling welfare from public vs private, because it's easy to conflate the two. It's entirely possible to rely on private markets to bring down prices and increase availability, while using publicly funded welfare to enable access for those less fortunate.