On Mar 28, 2008, at 12:58 PM, Rev. Stewart Marshall wrote:
OK than why were there are more doctors, and more CT scan machines and MRI scan machines per capita than any other nation we pay more for our health care?
Because we want those services on demand, whether we actually need them or not, since the consumers are largely not the payers, and the providers have every incentive to order every test they can get paid for.
In many areas we have more Doctors per person than many other nations. (In urban areas, rural is another story) Yet again we pay more than any other nation.
And our Dr's are paid better than most, offsetting in part their costs of education and costs of doing business.
It is not always the case that when the government sticks their hand in it is worse or better.
Never said it was. There are things gov't does best. Managing markets is not one of them.
For Cable and media such as this you must have a common backbone and an infrastructure.
No. You must have an interconnected infrastructure - not the same thing at all.
Many of our folks do not build fiber optic lines, someone else does and the companies lease from them. Same with Cell towers etc.
Yup. Why is this a problem?
When it comes to local cable systems and Telephone systems one infrastructure is needed. Who will pay for it?
No - see above. The potential users should pay for it naturally.
If one company pays for the infrastructure your damn straight they will demand a certain percentage of return from it.
Of course. They should not be guaranteed this return by the government unless the government is the principal user.
In the early days of telephone the Government gave AT&T (the old one) a monopoly to run wires across the US to build a phone system.
No, they did not to my knowledge. There were lots of mom & pop local phone companies.
At one time ours was the best in the world.
Largely because the rest of the world had had thier infrastructure leveled by WWII or had previously lacked the infrastructure to build the tools to build one.
Then we broke up monopolies (Which had very strict government regulations governing them) and we complain all the time about our phone service.
We complain mostly about the price, not about its working, even though costs for the same level of service are way, way down.
Capitalism doe not always work, but neither does full governmental control.
How do you define work?
It must be a balanced approach that takes into account Mr. & Mrs. Smith no matter what their socio-economic status and what needs to be provided at a minimum.
There is the catch - "what needs to be provided at a minimum". Who decides, the government or the market?
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