Here's the thing. The law of supply and demand can be manipulated, especially the supply side. That's why "free" markets usually aren't self regulating. Deregulated markets tend to create monopolies through consolidation. It's survival of the fittest. Monopolies are then free manipulate supply and what you pay for it. Aside from the fact that health care industry already has guaranteed business because our population is aging, increasing the demand for health care, the industry has been becoming more monopolistic for years. Hospitals are merging and creating fewer but bigger systems. Same goes for the insurance industry. Add increased demand for services from a captive customer base, and you get the reason why we pay twice as much as everyone else and don't have better outcomes. The ACA doesn't take the law of supply and demand out the equation. What it mainly does is increase competition by creating market places where people can go and more easily compare products. Increased competition puts pressure on suppliers to lower costs. Like I said, I don't love it. It's far from perfect. But it's an attempt at a solution, which is more than the other guys have. By the way, that's also the reason why libertarian economics won't work. The market isn't free, and it doesn't self regulate.
And i think it's safe to say that no one wants to live in a "gotcha" world where pre-existing conditions prevent care. Spot and resolve health issues early on so that they do not snowball into extremely expensive problems later.
I dont think this is true. Healthcare is one the most heavily regulated industries in america, uet it is still consolidating more amd more as time goes on. This is a direct consequence of improved telecommunications technology and national advertising. Strong companies can reach farther today than they could before usong less resources. Holding together a nationwide company today is nothing like it was even 20 years ago. I dont see any evidence that supports such an assumption. And even if it does, we could have opened such a marketplace without imposing the individual mandate. Frankly, the individual mandate is my only complaint about obamacare. The market does self regulate. One very recent and relevant example is the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI). The NAI is a consortium of big tech companies to come up with rules to follow on issues rangine from privacy to data collection practices. Even the company i work for follows ISO 9000, And OHSAS 18000, which arent required by law but are generally good business practices.
I'm a fairly wealthy white guy from a fairly wealthy family of white people, and all of the older members of our family are conservative. I noticed however, that anyone under the age of 50 in my family is liberal. Might sound like a small group of people to base this on, but three days ago I had 40 family members staying night, and that's not an especially large grouping for us. Thinking on this, it is further realised that almost everyone my own age and younger seem to be more liberal. Asking any of my friends from year seven till now what they thought of gay marriage or the right to choose, and they'd go with the liberal view. To me, it seems almost as if the conservative way of thinking is dying out more and more.
This is a common misperception. Studies have shown that conservatism is something many people actually grow into after gaining life experience. The fairy tale of everybody being equal starts to fall apart as some people age because they get fed up with supporting people who refuse to help themselves.
The market doesn't self-regulate properly. Please refer to 2008 Financial crisis. :lol: If you need references just google it. You'll find tons of economists saying it was cause by unregulated financial institutions doing what they wanted cause it turned profit.
SkyJ1LSA and I had a good chat last night about gun control. If I had to guess it lasted about 2 hours. Just a solid debate from two intelligent individuals. We both stated our stances, reasonings, interpretations of the 2nd amendment, etc. I didn't get mad and call him a UN ***** and he didn't get mad and call me a right wing nut job. At the end of the day, neither of our opinions of the topic changed; however, it was only a 2 hour long debate before we moved to other topics. Congress' job is to create laws relating to many of the topics sky and I discussed. If two college students can intelligently discuss political topics, then why can't politicians who are getting paid to do so? I guess what sets me apart most far leaning conservatives is my recognition of a need for bipartisanship. On all except for 2 issues I am far right. Abortion and gay rights. I think once a baby has a heartbeat, abortion should only be allowed if childbirth would kill the mother. So I take more of a moderate standpoint, since my view is neither far left or far right on abortion. Gay rights is a little different. Being that I am a conservative Christian, instinctively I am against it. That does not mean that I do not recognize a homosexuals right to be with who they choose. Their sexuality is none of my business nor does it it affect my life in any way. I don't believe I have the right to dictate anyone's relationship based on my own political or religious views. In fact, it would be hypocritical for me to say "I use my guns for personal protection, hunting, and recreational shooting. There is no need to take it away because I do not hurt anyone by owning a gun." Then at the same time say "you are not hurting one by being gay, but I still don't want to allow you the legal benefits simply because I am an egotistical prick." Other than those two topics I am far right. Interesting fact from my biology class. Every human on this earth is 99.9% genetically similar to any other given person. The reason we look differently is because the .1% of our genes that are different are the ones that contribute to the differences human to human. So next time you say "I am nothing like so-and-so" you are actually wrong and are 99.9% like them. Just some food for thought
Im both surprised and disappointed by your name-calling. (I consider labeling someone, who hasnt openly identified themselves as a particular label, name-calling). I assumed (based on th way you formulate your responses) that you were more elevated than name-calling.
Ron Paul is a libertarian. He only ran as a Republican because that's where the money is. And while I understand it's convenient to be able to straddle the fence and claim not to support any party, if you support Ron Paul, you are in effect supporting the libertarian party ideology. Or are you saying you support him, but don't support his views?
Dragon. Just because cheese supported Ron Paul doesn't make him a libertarian. I know so many conservatives who vote democrat for one reason - unions. Did you ever stop to think maybe cheese voted for Ron due to just one topic that he felt impacts himself the most? I'm not saying that is what happened, but it is possible. You also speak of cheese being on the fence like it is a bad thing. Honestly, it is one of the best aspects a voter can have. Moderates are generally the most open minded group of voters and the least likely to conform to their party affiliations expectations. Perhaps if you weren't attempting humor by being judgmental you may have considered these?
I supported Paul because i believed that his policies were what this country needed at the time. My political philosophy is all over the place
I think we need a radical reform Which no current political party can accomplish We need To legalise Weed.
If we legalized weed there would be a whole lot more people like you in forums who type Like This And Spell legalize with an S instead of a Z.
I have. There's being open minded and then there's fence straddling. I'm a moderate. I'm not registered with either party. I do lean liberal and I support many of the Democrats current positions. I've staked a position and said so. Cheese on the other hand has offered comments with mainly libertarian views, and has said he supports a libertarian candidate, but the first time I start associating him with libertarianism he accuses me of name calling and labeling him. That's fence straddling. I didn't just pick libertarian out of the air. Those are the ideological beliefs he's been associating himself with. I didn't label him. He labeled himself. So no, it's not bad to be open minded. But if you're going to join a political debate and offer opinions and criticisms of other peoples ideological orientation, don't try to distance yourself from an ideological orientation you've associated yourself with in order to shield yourself from opinions and criticisms in return.
Then why did you get offended when I started critiquing Paul and libertarianism? Do you support laissez-faire capitalism or don't you? Do you want to abolish public schools or not? Do you want to abolish FEMA? Do you support abolishing taxes completely? Do you want to abolish the Federal Reserve and return to a monetary standard backed by gold? Those are some of Paul's policies.