Comments by "Titanium Rain" (@ChucksSEADnDEAD) on "Bernie (And A Canadian) Explain Why Medicare-For-All Is The Answer" video.

The problem is that the healthcare system in the US isn't capitalist and thus there can't be any competition able to undercut those prices. Capitalist goods, despite having their prices set at the highest people are willing to pay, tend to drop in price. Computers used to cost millions of dollars and now we have smartphones that cost a hundred dollars that are thousands of times more powerful than those expensive computers were. Why is a procedure that costs 20,000 not dropping to 200 dollars, if capitalism made prices drop?
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@istvanglock7445 "what does the average patient know about modern medicine?" - what does the average car buyer know about mechanical engineering? What does the average gamer know about computer science? Even if you show a car to an engineer he simply will not start calculating the stresses and analyzing the electronics to figure out if the car us reliable. And even most gaming turbonerds can only read the specs the manufacturer puts on the label, not actually look at the chip and board design to figure out if the new computer parts or the next console is going to be powerful. So people ask around, they read reviews, they try to see if there's complaints on the internet, there's sources like the better business bureau, etc. Also, is Glock your real surname? That's badass.
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"It means it does not follow the normal supply-demand rules" - why? "prices can skyrocket and you have no choice but to pay because the alternative is death." - or the alternative is a cheaper healthcare provider. But thanks to regulation that protects big businesses you can't chose lower prices and force competition to lower everyone's prices. "Healthcare HAS TO be price regulated." - price controls ironically raise prices. This is a well known paradox, such as price controlled rent leading to lower availability of housing and thus increasing the prices.
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@ptviwatcher "if you increase a price then demand should lower. That does not happen in healthcare" - but it does, people put off going to the doctor when they should get something checked because they're afraid of the costs "The best example: Martin Shkreli increased his drug price over 5000% and the only adjustment in demand were people doomed to die..." - but he provided the drug for free to those who needed it and his upcharge was directed at insurance companies. And if you paid attention to the story there were alternative drugs that doctors could prescribe but were not allowed to, plus another company stepped up to make a cheaper alternative. Martin Shkreli's story not only exposed the exploitative anti-capitalist action of government-controlled monopoly but also shown him not to be the villain the media made him out to be.
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@ptviwatcher "prices go up, people either pay up or don't go to the doctor" - that disproves the part about demanding being inelastic. "Bernie wants to get rid of the middle man (make insurers obsolete)" - but that's the most retarded thing ever. Insurers' prices are a reflection of how much healthcare providers are charging. The middle man is hardly the problem here. "By the way, it's working in most European countries...." - I am European... It's "working", I guess... The American system also "works". All I know is that wait times are deadly and even my min wage job offers private healthcare benefits.
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@batboy3746 you mean like Bernie backed the bombing of Yugoslavia or the F-35 project? Must be fake.
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