> MoJo wrote: > The basic argument I often get is the old trickle-down theory....that helping > the corporations and maintaining a healthy capitalist society will in the end > benefit the poor as well. So far, we've not seen that work in practice > particularly well.
We haven't? Aren't we the richest country in the World? Didn't Japan, Germany, and Korea effectively use capitalism to rebuilt devastated countries? I know a few East Germans that would disagree with your assessment as to whether they - the formerly poor - are better off now. The PROBLEM with capitalism appears to be the most misunderstood concept in economics: it's ensuring egalitarian markets. One of capitalism's biggest proponents was Karl Marx and it's the system he recommended for all "start-up" countries. His well-founded fear with it was the corruption that could come government. So some of us "on the right" are against health care "reform" because piling more people into a broken bus doesn't help them. The first thing we need to do is fix the bus, and do that we need to get costs under control and to do that we need to take Marx's advice: use capitalism. It's worked in every industry in the history of mankind, and it'll work here. The key is to ensure government does what it's supposed to do: ensure a fair and safe health care marketplace. Once that's done, then providing universal health care is a snap. Summary: (1.) Fix the broken health care marketplace regulations (providers, equipment, institutions, insurance, et al) (2.) Fix the supply-side by putting the demand-side directly in front of it (3.) Fix universal health care by expanding medicare. Remember: 50% of all Americans are already on government healthcare! 30% are private, and 20% are uncovered. Why are they uncovered? Because doctors charge too much! Why do doctors charge more than the market can bear? Because the marketplace regulation is broken. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:308549 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
