Is U.S health care system civil?

[HuskerCAS]

Originally Posted by independent

Let's do the math.
Your 99 cent burger has maybe 1/8 pound of ground beef.
If it takes 10 pounds of corn to produce 1 pound of finished beef, that would be 1.25 pounds of corn.
Corn weighs about 56 pounds per bushel, so one bushel equates to 45 burgers.

Now the corn subsidy is, maybe, 33 cents a bushel ($5 billion on a 15 billion bushel crop).
Suppose 100% of the subsidy reaches the consumer (and none of the subsidy goes to the farmer),
then, without the subsidy, that 99 cent burger would shoot up to 99.7 cents.

Being from Nebraska, also keep in mind the geography of the country. The box formed between Texas, Nebraska, and Iowa produces an obscene amount of beef, wheat, and corn. It's enough to feed the entire country and then export the excess food everywhere. Iowa makes more corn than Nebraska (cornhuksers, go figure ...) and Nebraska makes more beef than Texas (longhorns, go figure ...).

Have you been to the Plains States? The western half of that box is pretty much sand with grass growing out it and the Aquafer is the only thing holding it together (think dust bowl). Iowa isn't nearly as arid, but none of that region can be considered tropical by any measure so where exactly is sugarcane supposed to grow? What I imagine is legitimate sugercane country is dominated by citrus fruit instead.

What's that burger made out of? Beef, corn syrup, and white bread. Just global specialization, nothing to see here ...

[HuskerCAS]

Moving on to healthcare ...

I honestly think the biggest problem in the US is Morale Hazard. You don't expect your auto insurance to pay for oil changes and windshield wipers, but we expect our healthcare to pay for our penicillin and doctor visits.

If you have a 20% copay and are willing to pay $20, the drug companies can charge $20 / 0.2 = $100 and you'll never know, unless you're uninsured. You take away the stupid nickel and dime benefits in health insurance, consumers won't tolerate paying $100 for penecillin and the price will have to come down.

I'm not a health actuary, and I wouldn't be surprised if actuarially this issue is peanuts - but it contributes to an inflationary environment and a market where the consumer just doesn't have the same level of input and ability to impact price.

[lovmath]

Moral Hazard, Intermediate Organizations....Developing countries don't have these intermediate adminstration (waste of money and resources)

[HuskerCAS]

FYI Morale =/= Moral.

Morale hazard is using more services because you have it and being less sensitive to price.
Moral hazard is lying to game underwriting and claims.

[Guerilla poster]

The biggest subsidy is ethanol, land prices have skyrocketed off of that.

I am not convinced food subsidies play much of a role in why America is obese. And nothing compared to the role of low oil prices.

We eat too much, the wrongs things, and rarely move by our own locomotion. Why would we not get fat?

[Rickson]

Originally Posted by Guerilla poster

I am not convinced food subsidies play much of a role in why America is obese. And nothing compared to the role of low oil prices.

HFCS and GMO corn/bean filler and products will be found to be the cause....we are subsidizing the hell out of them so they are being overused...

[jas66Kent]

Originally Posted by Rickson

HFCS and GMO corn/bean filler and products will be found to be the cause....we are subsidizing the hell out of them so they are being overused...

A rational response from you? I'm shocked.

But yes, I do agree with you there, HFCS is definitely a big problem.

The reason why HFCS is used is because the price of normal sugar(Which has a very similar molecular structure (fructose/glucose molecule) is very high due to the supply being controlled by very few companies, and they in turn bought off an army of senators/congressmen/politicians to pass laws/regulations which drove the price of sugar way up.

It's quite the racket tbh.(The corn/ethanol subsidy BS)

[FormLetter]

Originally Posted by jas66Kent

A rational response from you? I'm shocked.

But yes, I do agree with you there, HFCS is definitely a big problem.

The reason why HFCS is used is because the price of normal sugar(Which has a very similar molecular structure (fructose/glucose molecule) is very high due to the supply being controlled by very few companies, and they in turn bought off an army of senators/congressmen/politicians to pass laws/regulations which drove the price of sugar way up.

It's quite the racket tbh.(The corn/ethanol subsidy BS)

Given that you recognize this specific problem, and observed that it stems largely from a cadre of players purchasing what is basically condensed power in the halls of government, I'm surprised that a lot of your positions in Economics involve supporting concentrations of power in the halls of government.

I contend that concentrations of power in general are bad. Yes, "bad" is a mushy term for these kinds of discussions.

[jas66Kent]

Originally Posted by FormLetter

Given that you recognize this specific problem, and observed that it stems largely from a cadre of players purchasing what is basically condensed power in the halls of government, I'm surprised that a lot of your positions in Economics involve supporting concentrations of power in the halls of government.

I contend that concentrations of power in general are bad. Yes, "bad" is a mushy term for these kinds of discussions.

I support government intervention when there are market failures in the private sector. Also, I think certain sectors should be in the public domain. Having said that, I would never support a concentration of power, which is why I have mentioned that a 'healthy' size for the public sector is 30-40% of GDP. Anything more than that, and you start running into problems.

The problem here isn't the size of the government, it's the fact that massive sums of money has allowed our political process to become highly corrupted.(Let's face facts here. Americans worship money above all else) Even if the government were smaller, this would still happen. So, until you enact real ethics laws with teeth, and take out all the lobbyists, I don't see this changing any time soon.

[Rickson]

Originally Posted by jas66Kent

A rational response from you? I'm shocked.

But yes, I do agree with you there, HFCS is definitely a big problem.

The reason why HFCS is used is because the price of normal sugar(Which has a very similar molecular structure (fructose/glucose molecule) is very high due to the supply being controlled by very few companies, and they in turn bought off an army of senators/congressmen/politicians to pass laws/regulations which drove the price of sugar way up.

It's quite the racket tbh.(The corn/ethanol subsidy BS)

Just because you are a complete ignoramous in economics and don't get how we are mocking you and laughing at all your silly pop tart ivory tower wonk formulas doesn't mean you are stupid in other realms like knowing HFCS is bad. You need to go to mises.org and spend then next year learning economics and forgetting all the bullshit you've learned so far. I'd start with The Failure of New Economics. It goes through the whole book paragraphy by paragraphy crushing every 'idea' of Keynes. After about 20 minutes you'll learn that NOTHING Keynes wrote was original or true.

Hazlitt sums it up best on page 6: "I have been unable to find in it a single important doctrine that is both true and original. What is original in the book is not true; and what is true is not original".

You've basically wasted a lot of time learning useless stuff, I can see why the exams appeal to you...they give you a false confidence of intelligence.