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> the US healthcare system ... a completely free market I have read a lot of wrong things on HN, ranging from the merely misinformed to the willfully ignorant,

> the US healthcare system ... a completely free market I have read a lot of wrong things on HN, ranging from the merely misinformed to the willfully ignorant, but this might take the cake.

delinka 13y ago
I wonder if, perhaps, you could provide a counterargument to nikatwork.
- jdminhbg 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_%28United_States%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_%28United_States%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipaa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipaa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordab... This is kind of like condescendingly asking someone to provide a counterargument to a proposition that the Earth is completely dry land.
  - rogerbinns 13y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_need http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_need
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - abalone 13y ago
    Those are insurers. The article is about the hospital supply market. In particular, the completely unregulated part of the hospital supply chain. So.. are you merely misinformed, or willfully ignorant?
    - jdminhbg 13y ago
      > The article is about the hospital supply market. That's fine. The sentence I'm objecting to is about the US healthcare system.
      - tptacek 13y ago
        Again: that is a sentence you made up. You ignored the "it is even more" clause, which makes it clear that he believes the current market dynamics presage what would happen in a deregulated market. What's worse, in order to "object" to the sentence, you deliberately misquoted the comment and attributed your broken misquote to him.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
nikatwork 13y ago
You are selectively re-arranging my words to create a different meaning. At no point did I say the US healthcare system was completely free.
- jdminhbg 13y ago
  "Today's Instagram outage is a perfect example of the dangers of hosting all your services on your own hardware." ... "I never said Instagram hosts their own services!"
  - tptacek 13y ago
    What the hell? He really didn't say that. It really does look like you chopped up his comment to make a fake comment to argue against.
- CamperBob2 13y ago
  Hint: if a half-dozen different people misinterpret your point, it's not them, it's you.
  - moocowduckquack 13y ago
    That also largely depends on if they are being wilfully obtuse, or lack the basic comprehension skills involved with recognising wider context beyond the level of single sentences, which seem to be the main two areas of confusion here so far.
  - davorak 13y ago
    Half a dozen is pretty easy to hit when you have such a wide variety of people readying your post online. What would be the percentage threshold be?
  - tonylemesmer 13y ago
    So many unnecessary arguments crop up on this forum because of selective, incomplete reading of comments and misinterpretation. If commenters took a minute to think about other potential meanings before going off on some misinformed rant it might make for a more productive debate. Then again pigs might one day fly.
Steuard 13y ago
The sentence you're objecting to isn't claiming that US healthcare is a completely free market (which, as you note, would be an unbelievably ignorant view to hold... literally unbelievably). It's claiming that certain failures of the fairly-free US system already illustrate the sorts of failures that would plague a free(er) system. You may or may not agree with that conclusion, but it's a far more plausible view for someone to hold than what you seem to have thought the original poster meant.
- zdean 13y ago
  "US healthcare system is in fact a perfect demonstration of the dangers of a completely free market" The commenter actually says exactly that...that the US healthcare system is (in fact) a perfect demonstration of a completely free market.
  - moocowduckquack 13y ago
    No, it is a comment about the idea that the failures come from it not being free enough. Saying that something demonstrates the dangers of x by saying that the things that are wrong with it are features of it moving in the direction of x is not the same as saying that the thing is x. I could say that something nearly catching fire and getting badly scorched is a perfect demonstration of the dangers of fire, but that would not mean that I think that the thing has actually caught fire, it just means that I am using a perfectly normal rhetorical device to describe that I think that the fire is a danger.
  - krichman 13y ago
    The part you quoted doesn't support your argument, re-read it and then disagree with what was actually claimed if you'd like.
  - nollidge 13y ago
    OP: "perfect demonstration of the dangers of a completely free market" You: "perfect demonstration of a completely free market" Do you see where the difference is?

> the US healthcare system ... a completely free market I have read a lot of wrong things on HN, ranging from the merely misinformed to the willfully ignorant, but this might take the cake.

delinka 13y ago

I wonder if, perhaps, you could provide a counterargument to nikatwork.

jdminhbg 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_%28United_States%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_%28United_States%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipaa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipaa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordab... This is kind of like condescendingly asking someone to provide a counterargument to a proposition that the Earth is completely dry land.
- rogerbinns 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_need http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_need
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- abalone 13y ago
  Those are insurers. The article is about the hospital supply market. In particular, the completely unregulated part of the hospital supply chain. So.. are you merely misinformed, or willfully ignorant?
  - jdminhbg 13y ago
    > The article is about the hospital supply market. That's fine. The sentence I'm objecting to is about the US healthcare system.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      Again: that is a sentence you made up. You ignored the "it is even more" clause, which makes it clear that he believes the current market dynamics presage what would happen in a deregulated market. What's worse, in order to "object" to the sentence, you deliberately misquoted the comment and attributed your broken misquote to him.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

nikatwork 13y ago

You are selectively re-arranging my words to create a different meaning. At no point did I say the US healthcare system was completely free.

jdminhbg 13y ago
"Today's Instagram outage is a perfect example of the dangers of hosting all your services on your own hardware." ... "I never said Instagram hosts their own services!"
- tptacek 13y ago
  What the hell? He really didn't say that. It really does look like you chopped up his comment to make a fake comment to argue against.
CamperBob2 13y ago
Hint: if a half-dozen different people misinterpret your point, it's not them, it's you.
- moocowduckquack 13y ago
  That also largely depends on if they are being wilfully obtuse, or lack the basic comprehension skills involved with recognising wider context beyond the level of single sentences, which seem to be the main two areas of confusion here so far.
- davorak 13y ago
  Half a dozen is pretty easy to hit when you have such a wide variety of people readying your post online. What would be the percentage threshold be?
- tonylemesmer 13y ago
  So many unnecessary arguments crop up on this forum because of selective, incomplete reading of comments and misinterpretation. If commenters took a minute to think about other potential meanings before going off on some misinformed rant it might make for a more productive debate. Then again pigs might one day fly.

Steuard 13y ago

The sentence you're objecting to isn't claiming that US healthcare is a completely free market (which, as you note, would be an unbelievably ignorant view to hold... literally unbelievably). It's claiming that certain failures of the fairly-free US system already illustrate the sorts of failures that would plague a free(er) system. You may or may not agree with that conclusion, but it's a far more plausible view for someone to hold than what you seem to have thought the original poster meant.

zdean 13y ago
"US healthcare system is in fact a perfect demonstration of the dangers of a completely free market" The commenter actually says exactly that...that the US healthcare system is (in fact) a perfect demonstration of a completely free market.
- moocowduckquack 13y ago
  No, it is a comment about the idea that the failures come from it not being free enough. Saying that something demonstrates the dangers of x by saying that the things that are wrong with it are features of it moving in the direction of x is not the same as saying that the thing is x. I could say that something nearly catching fire and getting badly scorched is a perfect demonstration of the dangers of fire, but that would not mean that I think that the thing has actually caught fire, it just means that I am using a perfectly normal rhetorical device to describe that I think that the fire is a danger.
- krichman 13y ago
  The part you quoted doesn't support your argument, re-read it and then disagree with what was actually claimed if you'd like.
- nollidge 13y ago
  OP: "perfect demonstration of the dangers of a completely free market" You: "perfect demonstration of a completely free market" Do you see where the difference is?