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> In my opinion, healthcare is a sector that really shouldn't operate along capitalist principles because the goal of a national healthcare system should not be

by tedks 12y ago

> In my opinion, healthcare is a sector that really shouldn't operate along capitalist principles because the goal of a national healthcare system should not be to maximize economic efficiency: it should be to maximize the health and well-being of its citizens Why should we stop at healthcare if we're deciding that health and well-being is more important than economic efficiency? Energy, transportation, and service are all industries that have huge health effects. Agriculture obviously has huge health effects. Why not socialize all of them in the name of health?

mikeash 12y ago
We do socialize all of those, to lesser or greater extents.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  I regret having only one upvote for you.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    If only HN were a true free market, then you could buy more!
    - tedks 12y ago
      Why stop at upvotes? If hacker news were a truly free market, you should be able to buy any action the site supports over its database, and for a higher price, any operation the database itself supports. If Hacker News really cared about economic efficiency more than things like "insight" and "good discussion," we could buy shadowbans, changes to vote weights, and edits to comments or post titles.
      - toomuchtodo 12y ago
        Your post reminded me of "Citizens United".
- tedks 12y ago
  This article mentions price controls. There are tax benefits to using green electricity/cars versus polluting electricity/cars, but should gas cars be price-controlled up and electric cars price-controlled down? Should Tesla be made to accept only a set amount of profit as a measure of increasing the average health faster than it would otherwise? Actually, Tesla is a great example of how the health > economic efficiency question is answered decisively in favor of economic efficiency (or at least, profit for existing stakeholders). If governments cared about health more than profits, Tesla would never be barred from selling in a single state. If you start thinking that health and welfare are more important that economic efficiency, I think the vast majority of the current economic policy goes out the window. The IMF certainly shouldn't be advising struggling countries to cut education and healthcare first if health is truly more important that economic efficiency. If economic efficiency were truly second to health, the world should look very different. Would that really be better?

by tedks 12y ago

mikeash 12y ago

We do socialize all of those, to lesser or greater extents.

toomuchtodo 12y ago
I regret having only one upvote for you.
- mikeash 12y ago
  If only HN were a true free market, then you could buy more!
  - tedks 12y ago
    Why stop at upvotes? If hacker news were a truly free market, you should be able to buy any action the site supports over its database, and for a higher price, any operation the database itself supports. If Hacker News really cared about economic efficiency more than things like "insight" and "good discussion," we could buy shadowbans, changes to vote weights, and edits to comments or post titles.
    - toomuchtodo 12y ago
      Your post reminded me of "Citizens United".
tedks 12y ago
This article mentions price controls. There are tax benefits to using green electricity/cars versus polluting electricity/cars, but should gas cars be price-controlled up and electric cars price-controlled down? Should Tesla be made to accept only a set amount of profit as a measure of increasing the average health faster than it would otherwise? Actually, Tesla is a great example of how the health > economic efficiency question is answered decisively in favor of economic efficiency (or at least, profit for existing stakeholders). If governments cared about health more than profits, Tesla would never be barred from selling in a single state. If you start thinking that health and welfare are more important that economic efficiency, I think the vast majority of the current economic policy goes out the window. The IMF certainly shouldn't be advising struggling countries to cut education and healthcare first if health is truly more important that economic efficiency. If economic efficiency were truly second to health, the world should look very different. Would that really be better?