[javert]

> Dr. Smith said federal Medicare regulation would not allow for their online price menu.

> They have avoided government regulation and control in that area by choosing not to accept Medicaid or Medicare payments.

Obama, better close up that loophole! Wouldn't want people to find out that capitalism works in every. single. industry.

[kasey_junk]

every. single. industry where efficiency and profit are the main concerns and externalities are captured accurately and true competition can exist. That is not always true. Off the top of my head the justice system and emergency service providers (think fire/hazmat etc) come to mind.

Lets not let the bizarre state of the US medical industry act as some sort of straw man to support some ultra libertarian viewpoint.

[javert]

> true competition can exist.

True competition can always exist unless force is used against someone to stop it (in 99.9% of cases, that's done via government regulation).

> the justice system

The justice system isn't an industry, it's a proper function of government.

> emergency service providers (think fire/hazmat etc)

As someone who has been screwed over by government emergency service providers, I beg to differ.

> Lets not let the bizarre state of the US medical industry act as some sort of straw man to support some ultra libertarian viewpoint.

Actually, lets. The US medical system is a total clusterfuck and is only getting worse. It is hard to get good medical care in the US. There is only one way this complete nightmare could have come about, and that's because people aren't free to act in their own interest.

We could never remotely approach this nightmare in any non-highly-regulated industry.

In fact, practically all non-highly-regulated industries make amazing advances over time, whereas healthcare delivery has seen amazing regress in the last few decades.

This is not an appeal to some ideology that is divorced from reality. The empirical evidence is all on my side, plus a causal explanation for the results. But liberals are covering up their ears and shouting, "We can't (won't) hear you!". As a result, my lifespan and those of my loved ones will likely be significantly curtailed.

[kasey_junk]

There are lots of reasons for competition to not exist in capitalist systems other than force. Things like high cost barriers to entry, monopolistic practices, or oligarchic systems all can lead to situations where competition will not bring down prices.

Most of the first world believes that health care is also a proper government function, because you disagree doesn't mean that the justice system is not an industry. Lots and lots of profit driven companies exist purely based on the justice system, just like lots and lots of profit driven companies exist to provide health care.

We've tried to have private emergency service providers. For most of the history of our continent basic services like fire fighting, property security & education were provided as free market enterprise. Early 19th century New York city has lots of examples of how very very bad the results from those practices can be.

As far as your empirical evidence for free market health services, I'd love to see it. By nearly every standard I've seen the best health care in the world is provided by governmental, or quasi-governmental heavily regulated single payer systems.

The fact that the US medical system is bad is neither an indictment of free market libertarian principles, nor leftist socialist ones, because the system we have currently is a mix of the worst aspects of all possible options. Like most other things, partisan rhetoric is neither correct nor helpful in sussing out the proper solution to complex problems.