[dheera]

The problem with today's society is you walk into a hospital bleeding and they make you sign an ultimatum.

Legally this should be treated as signing under duress and invalidated.

If someone's life or well-being depends on it, and undergoing services in not a choice, terms and conditions should not be legally allowed to be unilaterally dictated by one party.

[sneak]

Fun fact: it’s illegal to open new hospitals without the permission of the government.

There are multiple layers of corruption at work here. (They also cap the number of doctors, and clinics, etc).

[woodruffw]

> it’s illegal to open new hospitals without the permission of the government.

This doesn't seem surprising on its face given that a hospital is, not unreasonably, a heavily regulated entity.

[sneak]

“on its face” is doing the heavy lifting here. Banking is highly regulated but you don’t need government permission to open new branches. The food supply chain is heavily regulated but you don’t need government permission to start new restaurants.

The supply of medical care, from operating rooms to doctors themselves, is heavily controlled by the state. There are billions, perhaps trillions of dollars that would flow into reducing the cost and increasing the availability of high quality medical care in the US if this were not so.

The demand is through the roof and will continue to rise. But the right to supply is only handed out to cronies.

[woodruffw]

> Banking is highly regulated but you don’t need government permission to open new branches.

The closer economic unit would probably be a bank itself, and to my understanding you do effectively need the government’s permission to open one of those.

[myroon5]

> don’t need government permission to start new restaurants

Zoning, construction permits, occupancy permits, patio permits, food licenses, liquor licenses, health inspections, dumpster permits, etc

[sneak]

All of those are normal things for operating any business, and are not limited in the usual case.

Liquor licenses notwithstanding.

There is no default-deny for getting a business license or opening a restaurant in a commercially zoned area, anyone can do it. Licensing and permission aren’t quite the same thing.