Well the fact that school also is too expensive now is the other half of that problem. Either way, we need to cut out the middleman.

No government-backed student loans, no insurance companies

Ah and how did school become so expensive? We had a central government universally fund it.

That's the problem.

Definately get a trade. My little sister is graduating from trade school in a couple months. Pricing plane tickets.

That's another thing, the myth everyone should go to college. Especially when they get worthless degrees in stuff like gender studies

Right but why do they get those degrees? Because the fed will insure loans for anyone who qualifies. So where does this put the incentive for the schools? Spend as much as you want to make your product attractive to the end user who will not see the bill. Then raise the price to cover it at a nice profit.

Socialized medicine results in the same set of incentives. Except that the cost can be pushed onto *everyone* and is not dependent on extending lines of credit to teenagers.

But how come it doesn't in most of the countries that have a national health care system? You often see that Americans pay more for healthcare than anyone else in the world. They wouldn't give people loans to get care like a college loan. You'd just get covered, and maybe have a very small fee. The government and the hospitals/pharma/etc can work out pricing vs the insurance companies doing it to try to make themselves rich along with kickbacks to the hospital.

I'd prefer a fully open healthcare market with no insurance companies, just pay reasonable costs, home visits, etc. But no one is trying to go back to that in earnest.

Just the Pauls, that's about it

We do pay more. "Fast, cheap, or good **pick 2**". We did not pick cheap. What we get from paying more is the highest survival rates in almost every terminal illness and the shortest wait times on the planet. Naturally this does have a downside.

And again I think we could decrease *costs* by deregulation in many cases. Like selling insurance across state lines to increase competition. Changing the structure of medical certification. Allow drug imports to use arbitrage to reduce costs etc.

Or pick socialism and get slow, expensive AND shit

No it is cheaper per-capita. That is why rich people in socialist countries come here for medicine.

Yet we go to Canada and Mexico for cheaper meds

Procedure for procedure, it's more expensive

I.e. an MRI in the states is like 300$ but in Canada it's like 900$

Even one small insurance company flies their clients to San Diego, drives them down the border to get drugs and back because it's so much cheaper even for them.

That doesn't sound right

Hell my CT scans cost like $1200

MRI, not CT

Of course CT is more expensive

https://i.insider.com/58d93348112f7048008b713d?width=600&format=jpeg&auto=webp

It looks like CT scans are about half the price in Canada

of here

But yes, MRIs are less here

Right. That's what I was talking about when I said we should allow importation so arbitrage could lower drug costs. It would be cheaper if we could buy those Mexican drugs on Amazon or some shit just in gas money.

As to the CT scans you can get them in time to act here.....

and interstate insurance shopping/group buys

but like I said, no one is pushing this except Rand Paul

Trump has for at least the last 2 years. Like I said I started liking him *after* he got the job. I also think right-to-try will lower R&D costs.

Well did they pass a healthcare bill when it was all 3 chambers GOP? Nope.

so I don't have the faith

But more than any other "socialist" program I'd like to see UBI. That would get more people off the street and be able to work a McDs job or be an artist without worrying about the basics, more effective than jacking up the minimum wage to levels areas and small businesses can't pay

Get rid of income tax and cut checks every month, a lot easier. Get the money out of Amazon, etc like Yang proposed.

UBI would just make the base cost of consumer goods rise

Yeah missed it by a vote that was a real let down. AS to UBI the only proposal I saw that made sense was by Murray who said that if it was used to *replace* all other social spending it would be a net reduction. Even then I am suspicious. Because if they gave a UBI of one grand this year it would open the door for the next candidate to campaign on a UBI of 2 grand and ever upward for eternity.

Campaigns would become a bidding war over who could promise to buy the most votes.

so would a minimum wage hike raise costs

So that's different than now, how? <a:1KEKW:638018439738556416>