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ManusJustus on 08 September 2009
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TheRealMafoo said:
ManusJustus said:
TheRealMafoo said:
ManusJustus said:

This puts Republicans in a tough position, because they understand economics and know that the private system will not be as efficient as the public system, and that the private system could never reach any goals that they could reasonably propose the to public.

What? Is that bolded part a joke?

The problem is the private system will be far more efficient then the public system...

The United States healthcare system is not as efficient as the healthcare systems of other developed countries.  For instance, the United Kingdom pays three times less for healthcare than the United States, and there is no way America's private system could bring costs down that low while still covering the entire population.  Before you say anything, because I know you will, the United Kingdom has private hospitals and, even if you were to argue that their public hospitals are slow, they could build three times as many hospitals and hire three times as many doctors and blow the United States out of the water if they wanted to waste that much money.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_hea_car_fun_tot_per_cap-care-funding-total-per-capita

We are not talking about the UK, we are talking about the US. The US government is not as efficient as the UK. Plus size does matter. The larger you get, the less efficient you are.

Tell me one thing the US government is more efficient on then the private sector?

In the US, 20% of all the insured is covered under a government plan. They pay as much to insure them, as the private sector pays to insure the other 80%. Yes, the 20% they cover are higher cost, but most of those 20% have private insurance as well.

Size does matter, but not the way you think.  The bigger you are the more efficient you become.  That is why Wal-Mart can easily out-compete smaller retailers, because of their size advantage.

Thats a huge assumption that the US government is better or worse than the UK government.  Whatever differences there are between the governments, there is no way they could account for two of the most similar countries in the world having three fold change in efficiency.

If you want to know what the government is more efficient at providing than the private market, you'll have to look characteristics of each individual good or service.  The most used examples for government provided goods are roads and security, being that the private market could never provide roads or a military as efficiently as the government.  To explain this, regarding security there is a free rider problem, if you paid Army Inc. to protect your country your neigbor doesn't have to pay anything to recieve the same service as you.  There is a disincentive to pay leading to less efficient security for everyone.

Just look up Market Failure.  The private market is less efficient than the government when there is a monopoly, monopsony, externalities, incomplete information, and 'public' goods.

http://www.economist.com/research/economics/alphabetic.cfm?term=marketfailure#marketfailure

Its a free market economics website, and it tells you the only way to provide certain goods is through taxation.