[consumer451]

> The US population is so indoctrinated with baseless propaganda that it will take a century for it to move to a better model.

I used to be one of those people. We immigrated to the USA when I was very young, so as I grew up I went extra Right/libertarian, thinking that would make me "more American" somehow. I now realize that this is very common in US immigrants.

It was the US health system that showed me the undeniable faults in pure libertarianism. It all seems so obvious now:

In a government run health system, dollars put into the system which do not end up going to patient care is called waste, it is seen as a negative and we work to minimize it.

In a privatized for-profit health system, dollars put into the system which do not end up going to patient care is called profit, it is seen as a positive and we work to increase it.

It's that simple. For-profit-all-the-things is not ideal. The main lesson I learned is that stubborn ideological purity is fraught with issues, no matter the ideology.

[seanmcdirmid]

Not to be pedantic, but the majority of US healthcare hospital systems are actually non-profits, so they milk profit a bit differently since they aren’t allowed to have any (instead it goes to administration salaries and overheads).

Even some of the insurance systems are non-profits. It doesn’t take shareholder profit motive to make money evaporate.

[consumer451]

Pedanticism is one of my favorite things about this website.

In this case... while my specific terminology may be lacking, if we zoom out and just compare the US healthcare system to other countries' systems, we demonstrably see lower per-capita spending and better patient outcomes. [0]

If we could agree on those facts, can you help me use the correct words to describe the issue?

[0] https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2...

[seanmcdirmid]

Oh we are in total agreement in the outcome. But misidentifying the problem as a pursuit of profit might lead to a reform that doesn’t really fix our system. The issue is a lot of vested interests getting a cut of healthcare money, and without reforms to streamline that, we aren’t going to make progress in coming up with something better.

[ifyoubuildit]

I wouldn't call myself a libertarian, but I do find it bewildering when people caricature libertarianism like this.

For one thing, if you go through the exercise of examining the parts of the healthcare system and ask yourself "how much is the state involved in this", I think you may come to a different conclusion. I don't know what to call our trash heap of a system, but libertarian seems obviously not it.

[consumer451]

OK, this is interesting. Please help me correct my terminology.

On my part of the exchange, might I suggest that what you see as government involvement could also be called "regulatory capture"? [0]

What I mean is that the monied interests now have major influence on the government which regulates them, so they create "regulation," with the goal of perpetuating their own profit centers.

How can I do better from your point of view? If not libertarianism, what should we call the ideology or ideals that led to this healthcare system with an ever increasing chain of profit centers?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

[ifyoubuildit]

Like I said, I don't know what to call it. Crony capitalism probably fits, which goes along with your link.

Libertarianism is about liberty, or individual freedoms. Are you free to purchase any drug or test or service or device that you want from whoever you want? Of course not, the state is heavily involved in making these decisions for you.

[consumer451]

Ok, so one of the killer apps that I have discovered with LLMs is to further my own personal political depolarization. ChatGPT will always make a solid argument for most any other side.

To help identify what the heck I am talking about here, here is ChatGPT Classic's take on "libertarianism vs capitalism vs crony capitalism vs anarcho capitalism" [0] I found it very good reading.

What I realize now is that I was only holding on to one aspect of "libertarianism."

> Free Markets: Supports the idea that a market free from government interference naturally leads to efficiency, innovation, and wealth creation.

If I may be introspective for a moment, I believe that the reason that I may have used libertarianism instead of capitalism, is because how polarizing "capitalism" has become in the US discourse. I feel like readers would assume that if I am making light of capitalism, then I must support communism or some equally obsolete ideology.

[0] https://chat.openai.com/share/c4f4cedf-a995-4cc5-8feb-268c7c...