Yes, a mixed economy is partially state run. There are many thing the market handles best, but there are also many things the market never will handle even moderately well. Not everything in this world can be measured by profit margins. And it is always some group of humans that are not 'market' desirable who are left out.
The best example is health care and the elderly. Insurance companies don't want to insure the elderly. They are high risk, low reward customers. Before Medicare, the elderly were the most likely citizens to end up in poverty. Since Medicare was enacted the elderly are among the least likely to end up in financial ruin. And American life expectancy at birth ranks 30th in the world. We remain 30th for the rest of our lives -- until we reach 65. Then, our rank rises until we reach 14th at 80. We can thank the remarkable access to health care provided by Medicare.
Insurance corporations are not in the health care business. they are in the profit business.
There are people employed by insurance companies whose sole job is to go over your health records with a fine tooth comb and find a loophole, a previous treatment for a mole, wart or something they can create a link to your current illness, and they get rewarded for finding and denying treatment.
THAT my naive friend is how a 'free market' works. Insurance companies are not in the healthcare business. They are in the PROFIT business. Denial of expensive treatments feed the bottom line.
Do you understand the keys to a market transaction? Do you understand the term 'leverage'? If one party in a market transaction has little or no leverage, it is NOT a free market. It is a captured market.
The whole basis of a 'free market' is the buyer has leverage, i.e. he/she can take his/her business elsewhere. That works perfectly fine when the stakes are 'things' (cars or TV sets etc). But a person's health is not a 'thing', and the consumer's stake is their very life. An unhappy consumer can go buys a different car or TV. If a person has a life threatening illness and is denied coverage for treatment, WHAT leverage does that person have...take their business elsewhere IN ANOTHER LIFE?
All of this stems from the flawed belief that the best way to pay for costly things is have a third party pay.
That and the even more flawed assumption that a program which costs well in excess of ten times what it was projected to cost when set in motion is a success.
Your authoritarian statist ship of foolishness seems to keep running aground.
While not all conservatives are authoritarians; all highly authoritarian personalities are political conservatives.
Robert Altmeyer - The Authoritarians
You have 'flawed' propaganda from true authoritarians who reside on the right, not the left. Authoritarians kill people. Liberals protect people, especially the least among us.
Social Security and Medicare have not cost 'third parties' anything. They are social insurance programs. They are pay-go programs.
SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE
Social Security and Medicare have been prominent in the deficit and debt ceiling debate. Unfortunately, there is much misinformation and misunderstanding on how these programs work. Below are some key points to keep in mind about these important programs.
Social Security (SS) is NOT broke and despite claims to the contrary, Social Security does NOT contribute to the National debt or the deficit. By law, Social Security cannot borrow from the general fund and general funds cannot be appropriated for operational costs without changing the law. In 1983, to address the retirement of the baby boomers, President Reagan signed into law a bill raising the SS payroll tax and the retirement age.
The result is a $2.6 Trillion surplus in the SS trust fund held in the form of special issue Treasury notes – this means that SS actually loans money to the US Treasury. When SS expenses exceed SS income, Treasury notes are called and the Treasury must come up with the funds to cover the call, but this is NOT deficit spending. When Treasury notes are redeemed, the government debt to the SS trust is decreased, not increased. Even if no changes are made to SS taxes or benefits (unlikely), full benefits are still payable until 2036, after which 75% of benefits will still be paid without adding to the debt or the deficit.
Similarly, Medicare’s Hospital Insurance – Part “A” Trust Fund has a $272 Billion surplus in the form of special issue Treasury notes, but this Trust Fund is being exhausted at a more rapid rate than the SS Trust Fund. Two primary factors are driving Medicare expenditures to exceed income – increased enrollment and increased medical care expenses.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is moderating the increase in costs of medical care. However measured, the ACA brings about “sizable improvement in the financial outlook for Medicare compared to the law in effect prior to the Affordable Care Act”. If the ACA is repealed or defunded, the effect will drive up expenditures from the Medicare Trust Fund and accelerate the date of exhaustion of the fund. While Medicare does face a shortfall, it is NOT going bankrupt. Absent any corrective action (again, not likely), when the Trust fund becomes exhausted projected to occur in 2024, its income from Medicare payroll taxes and other sources will meet 90 percent of its projected obligations without adding to the debt or the deficit. Note that Medicare Parts “B” and “D” are self sustaining due to automatic income adjustments.
Although Medicare expenditures are high, they “have grown more slowly than insurance premiums over the past 40 years”. "A private health insurance plan covering the standardized benefit would, CBO estimates, be more expensive currently than traditional Medicare. Both administrative costs (including profits) and payment rates to providers are higher for private plans than for Medicare." However, according to a recent study, 12% of medical professionals are currently refusing to accept private insurance due to administrative burden and inadequate reimbursement rates. The corresponding Medicare refusal rate is 7%.
We have all made mistakes. But Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on different scales. Better the occasional faults of a party living in the spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a party frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
President John F. Kennedy
"It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners"
Albert Camus
