JohnG@lt wrote:
Ok, well let's compare apples with apples here. What the South Koreans have with their internet providers is very similar to what passed in Congress late last year, the health care bill. What passed was a 'soft nationalization'. The middlemen survive to fight another day and they provide cover to what is in reality a government system. Instead of creating an overt NHS funded via taxes, we have a system where everyone is forced to pay health insurance premiums. The premium is simply a replacement for direct taxation in this regard.
Yeah, except for the fact that the insurance is still private under Obamacare. The only way this analogy would work is if the insurance was state provided. Because it's not, the "infrastructure" isn't apples to apples with South Korea's telecom infrastructure.
By the way, if in fact, insurance had been socialized while hospitals were still private, that would actually be a working system. Instead, the Blue Dogs watered the bill down to a mere mandated private insurance scam.
So we agree that Obamacare was a serious mistake, but I think you're missing why it's a bad thing and why South Korea's telecom infrastructure is an entirely different system in nature.
JohnG@lt wrote:
Instead of creating anything but superficial competition, what they've done is commoditize health insurance to the nth degree so that they will eventually all look identical. Couple this with price controls and there really is no competition at all. Like the South Koreans, our insurance companies do not control the back end and therefor any competition in price simply comes out of profits.
Nope, Obamacare simply forces people to buy private insurance, which is very different from forcing people to pay taxes for public services.
JohnG@lt wrote:
If they had been honest with both themselves and the public, they would've just gotten rid of the insurance companies all together and hit us with direct taxation to pay for it all. That's the end result anyway. This form just allows rent seekers to sit between the tax payer and the government and take their cut off the top.
Again, this halfway system only works when the infrastructure or insurance is socialized, while the providers (ISPs and Hospitals) are private.
Obamacare only socializes health insurance for the poorest of the poor. The rest of us without employer plans get fucked into buying private insurance. That is totally different from fully socialized infrastructure.
JohnG@lt wrote:
But that would've been inconvenient to the politicians in charge. Instead of directing their rage at poor customer service etc at the insurance companies, it would've been heaped on the politicians instead. That 4% or whatever cut the insurance companies get provides political cover and a convenient fall guy in the future.
Perhaps, but the biggest reason why the public option died is because insurance companies have bought most of Congress. Socializing insurance in America will never happen to the degree that it would foster a working system covering all Americans.
Instead, we're getting fucked by lobbyism.
Then again, telecom infrastructure will probably never be socialized either, because telecoms spend more money on lobbyism than any other industry.
So essentially, our system has been bought by corporate interests.