4 ms·

Capitalism.

HenryBemis 9y ago
What I wrote with many many words, you wrote with 1 :)
jstanley 9y ago
This isn't capitalism. If it was capitalism, somebody would come along and offer to let you give birth in their buildings for less than $32k. I'm not sure what is going on here, but it isn't capitalism.
- FussyZeus 9y ago
  It's Capitalism applied to something that doesn't have a market, shouldn't have a market, and who's participants are unable to properly participate in it in any way that resembles a market.
  - gohbgl 9y ago
    The health sector is one of the most regulated sectors in the US. It has nothing to do with free market capitalism.
    - FussyZeus 9y ago
      And yet for profit entities proliferate it at every level, and the constant drumbeat of people against nationalization is for people to be "smart" consumers of healthcare, as if you can make an informed market-based decision about which provider to use while in the back of a damn ambulance.
      - a_tractor 9y ago
        >the constant drumbeat of people against nationalization is for people to be "smart" consumers of healthcare No it isn't. The people who are against nationalization believe a free market would be better, but that excessive government regulation, deeply entrenched administrative/bureaucratic bloat (middlemen) as well as unfair competition with insurance co ponzi style business models prevents an accessible free market for health care from happening. They see corruption and cronyism maintaining the status quo and see through the obvious false choice where the only available options is bankruptcy or socialism. The people against nationalization do not think that health care should cost as much as it does, and do not believe socializing the effects of a bloated, broken and corrupt system will do anything but make it worse. They are also likely to be the same people who would have to pay for it, as if they aren't already, and they are smart enough to see that the ever increasing welfare state (not to mention forced acceptance of mass immigration) will eventually eat them alive. Why would anybody accept much less desire to live in such a parasitic environment?
    - gohbgl 9y ago
      > as if you can make an informed market-based decision about which provider to use while in the back of a damn ambulance. That's a pretty bad straw man argument. Of course you have to pick an insurer before the accident happens otherwise it's not insurance.
      - FussyZeus 9y ago
        How does the ambulance know where my insurer wants me to go? For that matter, why is it the responsibility of EMT's to, whilist driving at high speed through traffic and attempting to keep my organs in my torso, go through my insurance info and figure out which hospital I should go to and potentially risk both my and their safety with a longer trip, to respect the wishes of a corporation which barely knows I exist? How about instead, we just fix people? And figure out the rest of the BS later?
  - jamesblonde 9y ago
    This is a good argument for why we should reject meta-narratives for how the world should work. Capitalism (and/or consumerism?) is one such narrative. Ignore or criticize data points that don't fit the meta-narrative. In that sense, Scandinavian policy is light years ahead, as it is pragmatic and have reasonably high amounts of evidence-driven policy (disclaimer, i live in Sweden).
  - a_tractor 9y ago
    >doesn't have a market doesnt have supply and demand? scarcity of skill and resources isn't real? >shouldn't have a market So it does have a market, but shouldn't? >participants are unable to properly participate in it in any way that resembles a market Really? So I am not competing with others for a better doctor's limited time? I'm not working harder to attain more money to buy better insurance or afford better care? What are you talking about? Talk about bureaucratic bloat, regulatory overhead, regulatory capture/cronyism, the need for tort reform, or the fact that the insurance co ponzi business model dominates price negotiation and destroys any semblance of an efficient free market and you make start making sense.
- coldtea 9y ago
  You mean it isn't capitalism as it's supposed to work in theory. But it is capitalism like it turns out in practice when the population fears "socialism" and caps on corporate greed.
- psyc 9y ago
  Middlemanism? A promiscuous value-chain of “service providers”. The capitalism part is that the top terminates at a public corporation or private equity firm.
- mirimir 9y ago
  It's mainly to minimize risk. If everything goes well, home birth is an option, best with a midwife. If it's legal, anyway. But if something goes wrong, you'll end up at hospital, mother and/or child may die or be disabled, and the overall price will likely be greater.
- a_d 9y ago
  Crony capitalism. "Crony capitalism is an economy in which businesses thrive not as a result of risk taken for them, but rather, as a return on money amassed through a nexus between a business class and the political class." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism (exactly what I explained in a separate comment on this thread :-))
  - romwell 9y ago
    So, Capitalism.
arca_vorago 9y ago
With regulatory capture and corruption of the government, isn't our problem a textbook definition of facism (in the academic sense of the word, not in the nazi sense of the word)? Personally I think the word is overused and too heavily charged, and a more appropriate and descriptive term is corporatism. I also agree with Chris Hedges and Sheldon Wolin that inverted totalitarianism is an apt definition. According to the Princeton study of congress, we are also an oligarchy due to the public having almost no influence on legislation, meaning we are not being represented by our elected officials. I would also argue with the increasing disparity of power and resources between the uber-rich and the rest of, and as the middle class is attacked from all sides and shrinks, that our system also matches the definition of neo-feudalism. So, to put it all together, America has allowed itself to become a neo-feudal oligarchical corporate inverted totaltarian surveillance state.
- coldtea 9y ago
  Why start with the definitions first? Isn't that backwards?
  - arca_vorago 9y ago
    I don't understand your comment? The question of the post is why does it cost this much? A responder said capitalism, and I am just going further into the various political definitions that describe the current system, which is helpful in inderstanding the original question of the article. If it's an oligarchical corporate state, then it would make sense that hospitals (companies) abuse of their regulatory capture (oligarchism) are exploiting the majority of people financially and otherwise (neo-fuedalism), largley by making them dependent or subservient to their systems. How is that backwards?
    - coldtea 9y ago
      >I don't understand your comment? The question of the post is why does it cost this much? A responder said capitalism, and I am just going further into the various political definitions that describe the current system, which is helpful in inderstanding the original question of the article. That's what I am referring to. Instead of looking into some idealistic "political definitions" and say "according to this this system isn't capitalism", we should look into what's going on (in reality) and say "this is what capitalism looks like". Else it's like those marxists, that instead of accepting that communism can result in a BS bureaucratic state, they said that USSR and co weren't "real communism/socialism", because they didn't match the theory, and that real communism hasn't been tried etc. That's what I call going backwards. One has a definition, and compares reality against it. Instead they should derive their definition from what happens in reality -- and maybe even accept that their idealistic definition can't ever happen anyway. It's like some zoologist had a definition of animal X, and then matched it with various animals and said "this can't be X, because it doesn't match the definition". Well, if that X existed only in theory that's a bad practice. The definition of any X should come from studying actual animals (e.g. this animal species has so and so characteristics, we'll call them an X, e.g. tiger). So, where has this ideal "capitalism" even been seen in the wild?
qwz4233 9y ago
It is not capitalism. In all the countries mentioned above where child birth is less costly there is significant projected population drop, and governments are under pressure to subsidize families with children.
dang 9y ago
This manages to combine ideological battle with fluff, the two things that are worst for Hacker News. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't post like this, regardless of which ideology or which fluff.

Capitalism.

What I wrote with many many words, you wrote with 1 :)

This isn't capitalism. If it was capitalism, somebody would come along and offer to let you give birth in their buildings for less than $32k. I'm not sure what is going on here, but it isn't capitalism.

FussyZeus 9y ago
It's Capitalism applied to something that doesn't have a market, shouldn't have a market, and who's participants are unable to properly participate in it in any way that resembles a market.
- gohbgl 9y ago
  The health sector is one of the most regulated sectors in the US. It has nothing to do with free market capitalism.
  - FussyZeus 9y ago
    And yet for profit entities proliferate it at every level, and the constant drumbeat of people against nationalization is for people to be "smart" consumers of healthcare, as if you can make an informed market-based decision about which provider to use while in the back of a damn ambulance.
    - a_tractor 9y ago
      >the constant drumbeat of people against nationalization is for people to be "smart" consumers of healthcare No it isn't. The people who are against nationalization believe a free market would be better, but that excessive government regulation, deeply entrenched administrative/bureaucratic bloat (middlemen) as well as unfair competition with insurance co ponzi style business models prevents an accessible free market for health care from happening. They see corruption and cronyism maintaining the status quo and see through the obvious false choice where the only available options is bankruptcy or socialism. The people against nationalization do not think that health care should cost as much as it does, and do not believe socializing the effects of a bloated, broken and corrupt system will do anything but make it worse. They are also likely to be the same people who would have to pay for it, as if they aren't already, and they are smart enough to see that the ever increasing welfare state (not to mention forced acceptance of mass immigration) will eventually eat them alive. Why would anybody accept much less desire to live in such a parasitic environment?
  - gohbgl 9y ago
    > as if you can make an informed market-based decision about which provider to use while in the back of a damn ambulance. That's a pretty bad straw man argument. Of course you have to pick an insurer before the accident happens otherwise it's not insurance.
    - FussyZeus 9y ago
      How does the ambulance know where my insurer wants me to go? For that matter, why is it the responsibility of EMT's to, whilist driving at high speed through traffic and attempting to keep my organs in my torso, go through my insurance info and figure out which hospital I should go to and potentially risk both my and their safety with a longer trip, to respect the wishes of a corporation which barely knows I exist? How about instead, we just fix people? And figure out the rest of the BS later?
- jamesblonde 9y ago
  This is a good argument for why we should reject meta-narratives for how the world should work. Capitalism (and/or consumerism?) is one such narrative. Ignore or criticize data points that don't fit the meta-narrative. In that sense, Scandinavian policy is light years ahead, as it is pragmatic and have reasonably high amounts of evidence-driven policy (disclaimer, i live in Sweden).
- a_tractor 9y ago
  >doesn't have a market doesnt have supply and demand? scarcity of skill and resources isn't real? >shouldn't have a market So it does have a market, but shouldn't? >participants are unable to properly participate in it in any way that resembles a market Really? So I am not competing with others for a better doctor's limited time? I'm not working harder to attain more money to buy better insurance or afford better care? What are you talking about? Talk about bureaucratic bloat, regulatory overhead, regulatory capture/cronyism, the need for tort reform, or the fact that the insurance co ponzi business model dominates price negotiation and destroys any semblance of an efficient free market and you make start making sense.
coldtea 9y ago
You mean it isn't capitalism as it's supposed to work in theory. But it is capitalism like it turns out in practice when the population fears "socialism" and caps on corporate greed.
psyc 9y ago
Middlemanism? A promiscuous value-chain of “service providers”. The capitalism part is that the top terminates at a public corporation or private equity firm.
mirimir 9y ago
It's mainly to minimize risk. If everything goes well, home birth is an option, best with a midwife. If it's legal, anyway. But if something goes wrong, you'll end up at hospital, mother and/or child may die or be disabled, and the overall price will likely be greater.
a_d 9y ago
Crony capitalism. "Crony capitalism is an economy in which businesses thrive not as a result of risk taken for them, but rather, as a return on money amassed through a nexus between a business class and the political class." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism (exactly what I explained in a separate comment on this thread :-))
- romwell 9y ago
  So, Capitalism.

arca_vorago 9y ago

With regulatory capture and corruption of the government, isn't our problem a textbook definition of facism (in the academic sense of the word, not in the nazi sense of the word)? Personally I think the word is overused and too heavily charged, and a more appropriate and descriptive term is corporatism. I also agree with Chris Hedges and Sheldon Wolin that inverted totalitarianism is an apt definition. According to the Princeton study of congress, we are also an oligarchy due to the public having almost no influence on legislation, meaning we are not being represented by our elected officials. I would also argue with the increasing disparity of power and resources between the uber-rich and the rest of, and as the middle class is attacked from all sides and shrinks, that our system also matches the definition of neo-feudalism. So, to put it all together, America has allowed itself to become a neo-feudal oligarchical corporate inverted totaltarian surveillance state.

coldtea 9y ago
Why start with the definitions first? Isn't that backwards?
- arca_vorago 9y ago
  I don't understand your comment? The question of the post is why does it cost this much? A responder said capitalism, and I am just going further into the various political definitions that describe the current system, which is helpful in inderstanding the original question of the article. If it's an oligarchical corporate state, then it would make sense that hospitals (companies) abuse of their regulatory capture (oligarchism) are exploiting the majority of people financially and otherwise (neo-fuedalism), largley by making them dependent or subservient to their systems. How is that backwards?
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >I don't understand your comment? The question of the post is why does it cost this much? A responder said capitalism, and I am just going further into the various political definitions that describe the current system, which is helpful in inderstanding the original question of the article. That's what I am referring to. Instead of looking into some idealistic "political definitions" and say "according to this this system isn't capitalism", we should look into what's going on (in reality) and say "this is what capitalism looks like". Else it's like those marxists, that instead of accepting that communism can result in a BS bureaucratic state, they said that USSR and co weren't "real communism/socialism", because they didn't match the theory, and that real communism hasn't been tried etc. That's what I call going backwards. One has a definition, and compares reality against it. Instead they should derive their definition from what happens in reality -- and maybe even accept that their idealistic definition can't ever happen anyway. It's like some zoologist had a definition of animal X, and then matched it with various animals and said "this can't be X, because it doesn't match the definition". Well, if that X existed only in theory that's a bad practice. The definition of any X should come from studying actual animals (e.g. this animal species has so and so characteristics, we'll call them an X, e.g. tiger). So, where has this ideal "capitalism" even been seen in the wild?

qwz4233 9y ago

It is not capitalism. In all the countries mentioned above where child birth is less costly there is significant projected population drop, and governments are under pressure to subsidize families with children.

dang 9y ago

This manages to combine ideological battle with fluff, the two things that are worst for Hacker News. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't post like this, regardless of which ideology or which fluff.