Group insurance works well to spread the cost, and that's the main benefit of the ACA.
That's not "insurance", it is group health management. And it only works as long as you're part of the group. And it only works because, in the long run, the government picks up the tab after you retire; but those funds are drying up as well.
In different words, "group insurance" does not actually work. Like many other welfare programs, it is indirectly financed by borrowing and is not sustainable.
Technically, that is the intended free market result. There is no financial sense (even across the whole society possibly) to keep people alive when that would cost more than you can ever get back from them.
That's bullshit. In a free market, what "society" wants is not relevant. What is relevant is the initiative and responsibility you take for your own life. If you prepare and insure early on, you can get cheap health insurance and will be protected even if "society" can never get anything back from you. That's the whole point of insurance. On the other hand, if you choose not to get insured and squander your money on something else, that's your choice too and you need to live with the consequences.
What you describe, namely a cost-benefit analysis of individual lives, is exactly what socialized medicine relies on in order to determine who gets care and who doesn't. It is the exact opposite of a free-market outcome.
And then you use health insurance as an example of how insurance and society's goals are in alignment? You gotta be kidding! The free market brought us to the awful state we were in before
There was no "free market" in health care before Obamacare. Obamacare simply changed from a highly regulated, corrupt system to a different highly regulated, corrupt system.
The insurers were denying coverage to people who were most in need.
If by "people in need" you mean "sick people without insurance", yes they did. The problem prior to Obamacare was that there was essentially no free market in insurance by which responsible people could prevent getting into that situation.
Obamacare, on the other hand, has given up on the idea of "health insurance" altogether. What it really is is a hobbled socialized medicine system that shoves vast amounts of tax payer money in the hands of insurance companies, drug companies, and medical providers. It's even worse than what we had before.
Either we need fully socialized medicine or we need a free market, not the succession of increasingly corrupt systems that our politicians have brought us. But, take it from someone who has actually lived under serveral different systems, between the two, the free market system is by far the better one.
For once the insurance company interests and those of society at large are aligned.
"For once"? That's the way it usually works in a free market.
The times when their interests are not aligned is when insurers are heavily regulated. For example, "health insurance" isn't insurance anymore, it has become large scale redistribution of money, and something that insurers can legally suck a large amount of money out of. Car insurance has become so regulated that it also cannot account for many risks anymore. Flood insurance subsidizes people in flood prone areas. Etc.
So... Are you saying that they are NOT Mormons or are you questioning their faith and calling them bad Mormons? Being that BYU stands for Brigham Young University which is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
And yet, it's an accredited institution of higher learning in which scientists work and publish scientific papers unrelated to their religion. Imagine that.
And being that it is first and foremost a religious institution.
You can say the same thing about some Catholic and protestant universities in Europe and that doesn't make them "religious institutions".
Hold it right there. I have very clearly stated what is meant here and as such the definitions you quote are irrelevant.
Stop lying. You wrote "No. A -ism simply is a discrimination on the principle property in question." That's not a statement about what it means "here". Furthermore, you don't get to arbitrarily redefined words and then criticize people for not accepting your redefinitions. The suffix "-ism" does not denote "discrimination", period. A very small fraction of words that have that suffix happen to be related to discrimination, but that has nothing to do with the meaning of the suffix.
I am not going to pretend people aren't different no matter how you are going to define it because someone calls it a "moral issue" to not pretend we're all the same. So if you want to call me racist for that you go right ahead. That really is your problem.
The problem isn't with the fact that people are different (they are), it's with your attempt to determine what those differences are based on race and then treat people differently accordingly.
And the fact that lots of people are racists, like you are, is actually a big problem for our society. It doesn't matter that you believe that your racism is positive rather than negative.
You are adept though at ignoring the vast amount of content, misunderstanding a portion of it and then attacking a strawman.
Definition of "racism" from Collins:
1. the belief that races have distinctive cultural characteristics determined by hereditary factors and that this endows some races with an intrinsic superiority over others
2. abusive or aggressive behaviour towards members of another race on the basis of such a belief
The doctrine is unscientific because (1) cultural characteristics are not determined by hereditary factors, and (2) races are not intrinsically superior over others. The doctrine is unscientific because, while there are lots of hereditary factors, they are not determined by race any more than they are determined by your last name or your native language.
The problem here isn't with me, it's with you: you hold racist beliefs, you simply think it's OK because you don't discriminate.
My ability to be tolerant of lactose is "superior" if I want to drink milk compared to the "races" of people who generally don't have that ability. Fact.
You believe that there is a valid concept called "race" and that it is responsible for genetic differences between humans. That makes you a racist. Whether you choose to discriminate based on that belief or not doesn't matter. In reality, the concept of "race" has no biological reality. It's as arbitrary as dividing people up by the first letter of their last names (which also correlates with lactose intolerance).
You're also mistaken that being lactose tolerant is "superior". First of all, you pay a metabolic price for your lactose tolerance. In addition, your lactose tolerance may encourage you to make bad nutritional choices.
The suffix "-ism" occasionally is used for doctrines that are related to discrimination, but most uses of "-ism" have nothing to do with discrimination.
You have to be utterly illiterate to believe that "A -ism simply is a discrimination on the principle property in question"
No. A -ism simply is a discrimination on the principle property in question.
That's bullshit. "Racism" is an (incorrect) theory that there are intrinsic differences between races that make some inferior and some superior. "Feminism" is a political movement to increase the power of women. Neither term refers to discrimination. "Socialism" is another political movement with different goals. The only -ism I can think of that is about discrimination is "ageism". The suffix "-ism" has no consistent meaning, and it rarely denotes a form of discrimination.
Many differences in outcome can be explained by controlling for variables; people who advocate "equality of outcome" don't care. If there are variables that cause unequal outcome, then whatever causes those variables to be different must itself be racist/sexist. Women work fewer hours? It must be a sexist society that allows men to work more hours than women.
Effectively, another form of taxing your local business. But since the TEA party doesn't like that, they called it something else.
So you're implying it would be better if the Tea Party didn't oppose NSA wiretapping and encouraged the government to raise additional taxes for the explicit purpose of violating our privacy? Or what?
Not in terms of bank regulations. The Great Recession was caused, for the most part, by lax regulations on the banking and mortgage industries across the world.
The people pushing such simplistic "lax/strict" views are using it that to advance their own political agendas and special interests.
We don't need more banking regulation, we need better banking regulation.
I think that's a reasonable compromise: governments leave currencies like Bitcoin alone (no taxation or regulation), and in return don't enforce anything. I guarantee you: Bitcoin will win over the Yen or Dollar that way.
Always a pleasure to say "I told you so" to people with objectionable belief systems.
But you're saying it to yourself. Private financial institutions fail, that's not a problem. The problem is your inability to deal with that and the attempt of people like you to screw others by promoting solutions that, in the end, don't improve the situation.
I don't see libertarians complaining about this or calling for regulation. Libertarians accept that financial institutions lose money and commit fraud, and they believe that it is up to individuals to take that into account when deciding where to put their money.
Each of the points you list sound like they are good, but they really don't work well in practice when they have been tried (and they have been tried).
What works well is to limit the power of the federal government and return much more power to state and local governments.
Bailing out the banks was not optional. Congress failing to act when the crash happened would have resulted in deaths
Bullshit. Even if these companies needed saving, were plenty of options besides shoving trillions of taxpayer dollars in the hands of big financial companies that made bad bets. The administration didn't even follow minimal rules for how such bailouts were supposed to be handled, and instead just gave away vast amounts of money to private firms.
And don't try to weasel out of who is responsible for this gigantic act of crony capitalism and corporate welfare: President Obama.
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That's not "insurance", it is group health management. And it only works as long as you're part of the group. And it only works because, in the long run, the government picks up the tab after you retire; but those funds are drying up as well.
In different words, "group insurance" does not actually work. Like many other welfare programs, it is indirectly financed by borrowing and is not sustainable.
That's bullshit. In a free market, what "society" wants is not relevant. What is relevant is the initiative and responsibility you take for your own life. If you prepare and insure early on, you can get cheap health insurance and will be protected even if "society" can never get anything back from you. That's the whole point of insurance. On the other hand, if you choose not to get insured and squander your money on something else, that's your choice too and you need to live with the consequences.
What you describe, namely a cost-benefit analysis of individual lives, is exactly what socialized medicine relies on in order to determine who gets care and who doesn't. It is the exact opposite of a free-market outcome.
There was no "free market" in health care before Obamacare. Obamacare simply changed from a highly regulated, corrupt system to a different highly regulated, corrupt system.
If by "people in need" you mean "sick people without insurance", yes they did. The problem prior to Obamacare was that there was essentially no free market in insurance by which responsible people could prevent getting into that situation.
Obamacare, on the other hand, has given up on the idea of "health insurance" altogether. What it really is is a hobbled socialized medicine system that shoves vast amounts of tax payer money in the hands of insurance companies, drug companies, and medical providers. It's even worse than what we had before.
Either we need fully socialized medicine or we need a free market, not the succession of increasingly corrupt systems that our politicians have brought us. But, take it from someone who has actually lived under serveral different systems, between the two, the free market system is by far the better one.
"For once"? That's the way it usually works in a free market.
The times when their interests are not aligned is when insurers are heavily regulated. For example, "health insurance" isn't insurance anymore, it has become large scale redistribution of money, and something that insurers can legally suck a large amount of money out of. Car insurance has become so regulated that it also cannot account for many risks anymore. Flood insurance subsidizes people in flood prone areas. Etc.
And yet, it's an accredited institution of higher learning in which scientists work and publish scientific papers unrelated to their religion. Imagine that.
You can say the same thing about some Catholic and protestant universities in Europe and that doesn't make them "religious institutions".
Stop lying. You wrote "No. A -ism simply is a discrimination on the principle property in question." That's not a statement about what it means "here". Furthermore, you don't get to arbitrarily redefined words and then criticize people for not accepting your redefinitions. The suffix "-ism" does not denote "discrimination", period. A very small fraction of words that have that suffix happen to be related to discrimination, but that has nothing to do with the meaning of the suffix.
The problem isn't with the fact that people are different (they are), it's with your attempt to determine what those differences are based on race and then treat people differently accordingly.
And the fact that lots of people are racists, like you are, is actually a big problem for our society. It doesn't matter that you believe that your racism is positive rather than negative.
Definition of "racism" from Collins:
The doctrine is unscientific because (1) cultural characteristics are not determined by hereditary factors, and (2) races are not intrinsically superior over others. The doctrine is unscientific because, while there are lots of hereditary factors, they are not determined by race any more than they are determined by your last name or your native language.
The problem here isn't with me, it's with you: you hold racist beliefs, you simply think it's OK because you don't discriminate.
There was no Tea Party in 2006 for Bush to appease. The Tea Party movement came into existence with Obama's election.
No matter how you try to spin it, your reference to the Tea Party is gratuitous and indefensible.
You believe that there is a valid concept called "race" and that it is responsible for genetic differences between humans. That makes you a racist. Whether you choose to discriminate based on that belief or not doesn't matter. In reality, the concept of "race" has no biological reality. It's as arbitrary as dividing people up by the first letter of their last names (which also correlates with lactose intolerance).
You're also mistaken that being lactose tolerant is "superior". First of all, you pay a metabolic price for your lactose tolerance. In addition, your lactose tolerance may encourage you to make bad nutritional choices.
I think that's a ridiculous suggestion. "The Government" is currently in Democratic hands; they don't give a f*ck about annoying the Tea Party.
Look at some isms:
The suffix "-ism" occasionally is used for doctrines that are related to discrimination, but most uses of "-ism" have nothing to do with discrimination.
You have to be utterly illiterate to believe that "A -ism simply is a discrimination on the principle property in question"
And this justifies a gratuitous dig at the Tea Party... why?
That's bullshit. "Racism" is an (incorrect) theory that there are intrinsic differences between races that make some inferior and some superior. "Feminism" is a political movement to increase the power of women. Neither term refers to discrimination. "Socialism" is another political movement with different goals. The only -ism I can think of that is about discrimination is "ageism". The suffix "-ism" has no consistent meaning, and it rarely denotes a form of discrimination.
Many differences in outcome can be explained by controlling for variables; people who advocate "equality of outcome" don't care. If there are variables that cause unequal outcome, then whatever causes those variables to be different must itself be racist/sexist. Women work fewer hours? It must be a sexist society that allows men to work more hours than women.
So you're implying it would be better if the Tea Party didn't oppose NSA wiretapping and encouraged the government to raise additional taxes for the explicit purpose of violating our privacy? Or what?
The people pushing such simplistic "lax/strict" views are using it that to advance their own political agendas and special interests.
We don't need more banking regulation, we need better banking regulation.
I think that's a reasonable compromise: governments leave currencies like Bitcoin alone (no taxation or regulation), and in return don't enforce anything. I guarantee you: Bitcoin will win over the Yen or Dollar that way.
True. But we're already far beyond that point, and now starting to move into fascist territory.
Bitcoin value is based on its utility, not on its "public image".
Drugs, prostitution, or political corruption don't become cheaper because people hold them in low esteem.
Obviously the straw men are out in force again today.l
But you're saying it to yourself. Private financial institutions fail, that's not a problem. The problem is your inability to deal with that and the attempt of people like you to screw others by promoting solutions that, in the end, don't improve the situation.
I don't see libertarians complaining about this or calling for regulation. Libertarians accept that financial institutions lose money and commit fraud, and they believe that it is up to individuals to take that into account when deciding where to put their money.
Each of the points you list sound like they are good, but they really don't work well in practice when they have been tried (and they have been tried).
What works well is to limit the power of the federal government and return much more power to state and local governments.
I don't think that situation is going to change no matter what, really.
If you remove money from the system, other forms of power and influence peddling just take their place.
Bullshit. Even if these companies needed saving, were plenty of options besides shoving trillions of taxpayer dollars in the hands of big financial companies that made bad bets. The administration didn't even follow minimal rules for how such bailouts were supposed to be handled, and instead just gave away vast amounts of money to private firms.
And don't try to weasel out of who is responsible for this gigantic act of crony capitalism and corporate welfare: President Obama.