Why buy a 100-year WordPress domain?
You think WordPress will be popular in 10 years?
If you die, do you expect your site to remain "alive" for the next 99 years? Without being completely rooted thanks to all those crappy WordPress plugins you installed?

Only if it's a 10,000,000 lumen flashbulb shining directly into your apartment window.

No, but the picture of a bird I've attached to this comment will disappear if I ever get one.

Does Canada have a "NOAA Weather Alert" style system in place?

My car, a radio in my office, and a radio in my house all tune into the strongest NOAA radio channel they can find and then will go off any time of the day or night when there's an emergency....like a forest fire, tornado, extreme thunderstorm, damaging hail, etc...basically anything that is imminently dangerous to life or property.

Maybe so...but maybe it's the quality of the employees they are hiring. I'm willing to do just about anything that isn't illegal, immoral, or unsafe as long as I keep getting a good paycheck. I mean...if I were earning $15/hr at a gas station and they decided they wanted me to start cutting down brush and felling trees on their property in 115 degree heat, I wouldn't be interested....but if I were making $150k/year at some tech company and they asked if I could help clean the bathrooms because all the janitors were out sick, I would have zero problem with that. Hell...if Google wanted to pay me $250k/year, I would eat, sleep, and work in my damn office for a few years to pad my retirement account.

Interesting thought....but I *do* work for a living. Even though I'm a small business owner, I'm never going to be part of that in-group that is investing in trying to keep people in office spaces in order to make returns on investments in other nearby companies or profit off being some restaurant across the street from FBHQ.
Maybe I've misunderstood what you're getting at...

I completely agree with that. Google could say "show up or you're fired". It's their right as a business.
On the flip side, employees can say "I'm not working in an office. If I am required to, I quit."

That's what I did as an employee (not for Google) about 10 years ago. My employer caved and allowed it for a year. Then they said "come back to the office because we just purchased a larger office". I said "no", they said it wasn't optional, and I quit on the spot.

Now I run my own business and 100% of our employees work from home with the rare (maybe one day every 3-4 months) client-site visit.

Why spend hundreds or thousands (or in Big Tech's case probably hundreds of thousands) per month on office space and forcing employees to waste hours every day being unproductive behind a windshield? I happily work 4 12-15-hour days every week...because I can live in the middle of nowhere and it's still costs me less time and money than when I used to drive 50 miles to work every day....no having to leave early for the inevitable 15-20 minute traffic jam, no parking meters, no tolls, decreased vehicle maintenance costs (bought a car in 2017 and it's still under 60k miles), etc...

Sure. If your qualified. But if you keep it up, eventually someone (maybe even slightly less qualified but willing to consistently show up...maybe even for less pay) will take your place.

I work my ass off every day because I negotiated good pay in exchange for my skills and actually doing the job. I like being able to provide for my family. I enjoy being able to spend my money on things my kids enjoy and will teach them. Maybe tomorrow it will bite me in the ass and the company will randomly fire me because they found someone cheaper. I doubt it, but oh well. I'll go work somewhere else.

Yeah, but TFS specifically pointed out that the data is "encrypted and never shared with Google"...as if everything else on the damn phone wasn't sending data to Google...

A stalker is easy to deal with. Arm yourself, learn self-defense, call the cops, etc...
An abusive monopoly or a rogue government is much more difficult to deal with.

> Google notes that this location data "is always encrypted and never shared with Google." Oh...well...thank God for that. I mean...it's not like the Pixel phone I'm carrying with me reports my location to Google through the search app, the Google Home app, the Nest app, the GMail app, the Find My Phone app, and probably various components in the core OS. Then there's the cell phone company location tracking/selling, and the multitude of other apps that all require location permission to do various things. I'm glad Google is so worried about my privacy... /sarcasm

Sorry--my bad. I turned on my old Linux laptop that's been sitting in the closet for a few years. I guess I bumped us over the top.

Filter error: That's too much. ;) I had to trim a lot.

...or it would still be your property and they leased it to them. Or you "join the road club" and agree to maintain your section for a share of the profits.

Most states have "black box laws" that tell manufacturers to collect certain data. Since vehicle manufacturers don't have to make 50 different models of their car because of the different laws, they typically collect everything they are required to for every state and they don't care if they're "over collecting" for your state.

I mean...the easy solution without government interference is to realize that "every car company is collecting and selling your data and it's super intrusive"...and then either launch a competing car company that brands itself as not collecting your data...or start a company that specializes in removing black boxes from vehicles. Government isn't the solution, it's the problem.

Sounds like a lawsuit would be in order.

Why would the payout be less than the profit? Could it be a corrupt, incompetent, or ineffective judiciary? Could the government have made some sort of laws that limit the amount of damages in certain cases through regulatory agencies? Look at the Monsanto/Bayer trial about glyphosate. I have a friend who used to handle the stuff in the 90s. They are a walking trainwreck of medical issues--everything from cancer to psoriasis to things the doctors can't even diagnose. The government has been saying for years that there's no grounds for a lawsuit because the FDA or EPA (don't recall which) says it's perfectly safe. Finally someone managed to convince a judge that Bayer/Monsanto had the governemnt in their back pocket and lawsuits are proceeding...unfortunately the friend died several years ago and won't see a penny.

Nearly every single lawsuit against the police would beg to differ. Regardless, it's easy to settle in those cases when you aren't financially responsible for it. The people are--including the accuser.

You're telling me there isn't a single politician in Washington DC that has made money by private companies sending them "campaign donations" to get them to vote a certain way? I mean hell...insider trading is *legal* for Congress. It might be unethical, and they might get a slap on the wrist from a committee, but they regularly benefit from trading stocks in companies they actively regulate.

On the local level, there are plenty of police departments that police for profit. Civil asset forfeiture. They'll take your money and force you to prove you aren't a criminal in order to *try* and get it back.

I didn't mean to offend you, and certainly didn't try to diminish the absolute tragedy of the situation. It's just a recent event where news agencies are reporting on the "lack of regulation" killing people.

Contrast that with any other crime. We don't condone rape as long as the victim gets compensated for the market value of their body. (I have no idea what a hooker costs in Nevada, but I would imagine it's under $1,000/hr).

We don't allow vehicles to be stolen out of people's driveway as long as they pay $57 per day (or whatever Enterprise charges to rent a car).

Seems like fraud to me. He misrepresented and hid things from you when selling the property. It's not slavery or theft because the government didn't take it from you and give it to him "for the public good".

Agreed. I haven't put too much thought into it, so I don't have any idea of a good (or perfect) solution. I'm going to have to read up on multi-pass voting (never heard of it before), but on a quick skim it appears to be pretty similar to ranked choice. Not that I vote. Both parties are corrupt as hell.

Granted. But that's what we've become. Property tax is atrocious. If 51% of your neighbors decide the police department needs a tank, you *will* help pay for that tank or your property will be seized over taxes. We no longer say "we can vote on stuff, but we can't vote to take other people's stuff".

I think if the internet suddenly became a big thing today and there was little or no regulation (similar to when I worked for a startup ISP in the early 90s), you would see a lot more cheap wireless ISPs (and competitors standing near towers with microwave ovens pointed at the towers with the door open and the safeties disabled) because it doesn't require as much in terms of land purchases/leases. You would probably see a lot of neighborhood co-ops too. i.e. everyone on my street has internet and it runs through fiber buried in a ditch by the road or on power poles. I'm sure we could come to a mutual agreement to trench fiber or put fiber on poles (hey--maybe electricity too) in order to get what we all want.

Side note: I think electricity would be different too. I think you'd see a lot more home generation. While the solar gain in my area isn't enough to power my house with the current solar technology, I think you would see a lot more solar, and I would guess there would probably have been significant advancement in the small nuclear appliance market. I remember some company in Australia talking about in the late 90s. They had a box smaller than a car that was self-maintaining and didn't have the ability to melt down that would provide power for 25 or 50 years or something like that.

LOL! Maybe. But I'm betting they'd rather approve a $100,000,000 project and get a 2% kickback as opposed to approving a $50,000 project and get a 2% kickback.

The politicians (government) who know nothing...make...the...decisions...that's still not...government?

Thanks to the EPA, it's extremely difficult to sue for harm because various companies are "just following the EPA rules".
I mean...it was difficult to sue for all the thalidomide injuries because it was considered save by government. Eventually the government realized it wasn't safe and it would be political suicide to stand behind the drug companies in the face of public outrage.

The government's plan was to *force* everyone to buy insurance and insurance must provide a minimum set of specific things. That's abhorrent. Again, it's involuntary servitude. Based on my family history that goes back several generations, I will need almost *zero* medical care (excluding random trauma like an unexpected car accident) my entire life. I won't get diabetes, I won't have heart problems, I won't get cancer, etc...right up until I hit about 58. Then I will unexpectedly drop dead. I won't bore you with the details, but modern medicine checked everything out and there is *nothing* that can be done. Not meds, not diet changes, not more exercise.

It was the same with my dad. Same with my grandfather. Same with my great grandfather.

I found out about the condition due to the autopsy when my father passed and I found out *I* had it when I finally decided to get life insurance and they tested me for free. They said "We can't insure you, you should call your doctor immediately". I found a doctor, had them run blood work.

Excluding those tests (which I paid cash for), my total medical expenses for the last ~20 years have been under $5,000. I'm on my fourth set of glasses--not because my prescription has changed, but because eventually they become completely scratched up or I lose them. I've also had two root canals and one cavity filled.

So tell me why government knows best and should force me to pay for a service I don't need and costs more than just paying out of pocket? The risk is acceptable to me.

Everyone should be free to make their own choices and accept their own risk. Yeah, tomorrow I could have some horrendous health issue and need to spend tens of thousands. That's my choice. My potentially bad decisions shouldn't be subsidized by you.

It sure sounds like that was what you were saying.

Sorry--bad context and bad Slashdot threading.
If I decide to cut down a tree on my own property, make a raft, and float it on a pond on my property....exactly how much should the government be involved?
If I decide I *want* a raft, should anyone be forced to sell it to me? Should anyone be forced to manufacture it for me? Should I get it for free because I voted to force you to pay $0.01 per $100,000 value on your property in "raft taxes"?

Some people don't want or need a raft. Some people already have a raft. Some want one raft, but have to pay the equivalent of 500 rafts to get one. Some people wouldn't even think of rafting, but now that they get one, they're going to use it every day for weeks, smash it into rocks, and then get issued a new raft. That's the government's healthcare plan.

Well...yes. My original point was that taxation and government are a form of slavery. We should minimize it as much as possible, not grow it for comfort.

And I've already voiced my objections to government-run healthcare. I have a handful of military buddies that have all be screwed over by the VA. They provide terrible healthcare. One of my friends broke his glasses. After 5 months of not being able to get an appointment, they finally got him one and completely screwed up the prescription. He was repeatedly told "just keep wearing them and your eyes will adjust--they're new". After another 3 months of trying to get an appointment, I took him to my *private* eye doc. Got a next-day appointment, and he said "yeah, they reversed the lenses". I got him new glasses within a week--even though it was a private doctor suffering under dumb regulation and insurance companies....because I paid cash.

Again, what's fair about stealing everyone's money to put it into a slush fund to pay for everyone's healthcare.
How does adding a few thousand government employees who all get an above-average salary, gold-plated retirement, and plenty of sick/vacation time (paid out of the slush fund) decrease costs?

Yes. There's one of those "guns" I was talking about.
People have a way of pretending government is a nebulous thing. Instead of pretending that "government" is going to magically fix some injustice, imagine it was dumped directly on you--the individual, not spread out in a million tiny increments across all the population.

If you start a business, grow it to earning $30k/mo, hire two employees, and one of them says "Darn. I got cancer. I'm going to take a lot of time off work, and you're going to have to find someone else to partially (and eventually permanently) fill my shoes...but you're still going to have to pay me even though I can't do the work...is that fair to you? Is that fair to the other employees who are actually able to work?

It's different if you've signed a *contract* to do so--like with an insurance company. Unfortunately insurance is frequently tied to employment which screws people over when they leave or get fired. They get told "Sorry you lost your job. That'll be $800/mo if you want to keep your insurance. Cancer? Ooh...you definitely don't want insurance to lapse, but no one is going to offer to let you pay $50/mo payment in exchange for having to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical treatment."

I ran into this with FMLA in my state. An employee decided to take 4 months off because his live-in girlfriend has his baby. Why am *I* responsible for the employees personal choices? Why didn't he save money for the event? Why didn't he go find an insurance company that will let him pay $75/mo, but then cough up $18,000 when he *decides* to have a child? You can't find that without government regulation because business owners don't say "I can't wait to start a business so I can't afford to feed my family and I go into serious debt to let employees not work but still get paid".

Sure a heart attack isn't a decision like a child...but things like smoking, eating McDonalds every day, and drinking 4 monster energy drinks every morning are.
Who is responsible for those dumb decisions? Under your plan, it's not the person who is smoking and eating Big Macs non-stop. Random doctors are.
Who pays the bill for those dumb decisions? You. Me. Everyone who earns money. But not my neighbor who is 32 and hasn't worked a day in her life because she gets "anxiety" if she's not in front of her computer 24/7 and somehow managed to convince the government we all should be paying her way in life.

So you've removed personal responsibility...and you've removed financial responsibility. That's a dangerous situation to be in. I mean...the ERs have been overrun in the last 20 years by people treating the sniffles like it's a medical emergency...and they don't think twice because they don't have to pay for it.

I forget what the number is in my state, but let's just say $10 million. So to become a "competing" insurance company in my state, you're gonna need $10,000,000 in the bank to cover potential claims, not to mention a few licenses and certifications and permission from the state insurance commissioner and business registration, and, and, and. Go! Wait...why aren't you competing yet?

What we have now isn't the free market. It's not capitalism. It's crony capitalism. You can't say true capitalism doesn't work and government is better when you are comparing government to crony capitalism.

Seems like the typical gridlock of government. I'd rather have my local doctor decide my treatment and maybe refer me to a specialist and pay them for their services than have some heavily-regulated insurance company second-guessing a doctor, mandating changes to prescriptions, deciding who is "in network" and who is out, forcing me to see someone that is cheaper for them (possibly because they are less educated or have worse stats or are bad at negotiating), delaying payments to doctors because hanging on to a few million for a few extra weeks or months can really earn you a lot in interest, and possibly having to go to court to settle things. Anyways, eventually this article will age-out and neither of us will be able to reply. Not to mention, I doubt I'm going to change your mind. So I will leave it with these simple thoughts:

Why can't people pay for the service they use instead of paying government to combine everything in to a slush fund (with costly government administrators) that seriously screws some people over and seriously benefits others (i.e. healthcare, the insolvency of social security, taxes in general)?

If an idea is so good (like buying car insurance or health insurance), why does it need to be made mandatory by government?

Why set up complex government systems that end up being corrupted by companies donating to corrupt members of government that prevent you from being compensated when you've been harmed (i.e. the EPA, the FDA and drug company protections and allowed chemicals, state government and drunk drivers, etc...)?
Who is responsible when bad things happen to people--like someone loses their job or suddenly gets cancer? Everyone dies. Do you want government mandating that you help pay for something that isn't your fault? Maybe they should have had health insurance. You could consider charitable giving though...I mean...see my first question. Why not give money directly to someone who needs it instead of setting up a complex system? If your answer is that people aren't charitable, see my second question--why make "charity" mandatory through theft only to have it corrupted by corrupt politicians and crony capitalists?

I enjoyed the debate--thanks.

At least I can refuse to do business with monopolies. If you don't like Amazon (remember when they were revolutionary and the "little guy"), try Walmart. If you don't like either of them, try a small "mom and pop" store.
I'm not a fan of Home Depot, so I go to my local hardware store and pay about 10% more for the stuff I need. You can't refuse to do business with government.

I'm not sure what it's like in the cities, but out here in the country in my area, most roads straddle the line between two properties. And yes, you do own up to the center line...but it's a "right of way", so you can't prevent people from coming on "your property" because you sorta "gave it up" (by force) to the government.

Out to the east of us, the roads are particularly funny. They'll run straight as an arrow for miles, then suddenly do a zigzag because someone wasn't forced to give up the right of way to the middle of their property and the road had to go around the edge. Usually because there were established buildings.

As for tracking, the government totally wants to do that. Several states are pushing for GPS-based road usage. While I'm not happy with the potential privacy implications, it would allow usage-based charges. Although I doubt the government would ever willingly cut off a revenue stream and stop charging gas taxes. It'll just be a new fee added to it.

It's a *great* example. I'm not familiar with the laws in Italy, but anyone injured *should* be able to sue the crap out of that company...because the bridge wasn't safe. Assuming the bridge didn't suddenly collapse due to...say....a barge hitting a pylon....in which case the company that owns the barge could be sued.

Good luck suing the US government though. If they screw up, they just tax everyone a bit harder to pay things off or print more money. Both of those things harm everyone.

So what part of government ownership as opposed to private ownership of the road makes this a non-issue?

And yet people get into non-government-run submarines, cars, space ships, and do all sorts of non-government-regulated activities. You assume your own risk. Don't make the government assume it by taxing the crap out of everyone. I mean...bring on the government-controlled healthcare. I'll start smoking a pack a day since I'm not responsible for paying for all the medical crap I will eventually have to go through. ;)

Ok--so let's look at the flip side. "$100 million please". "Naah. We're just going to take your property instead."
Slavery is wrong. Theft is wrong. No matter how much you shout "but it's for the public good!".

Sorry--didn't mean to derail the discussion, but I'd take ranked-choice voting in a heartbeat. I think that would fix a lot of this nonsense.

Small nitpick. We aren't a democracy in the United States. We are a Representative Republic...which means we typically vote for people to represent us, but in NO cases do we allow 51% (mob rule) to vote to steal private property or be allowed to take someone else's money. Unfortunately that system has failed, and now politicians do it all the time.

I agree with your initial statement--but the root cause is government. It's not capitalism that allows this to happen. It's government being allowed to regulate something they should have zero involvement in. But since they got their foot in the door, companies can bribe politicians and get the "ladder pulled up behind them"....preventing new competition.

The reason it's so expensive is they get to set requirements with very little care about the cost...because they didn't have to convince anyone to give them money. They just take it from all of us by force.

I get it's anecdotal, but I have friends who live in town. Basic service is $250/mo. It's atrocious. They put in a new multi-million dollar treatment plant that was partially matched by federal funds--so thank you for paying your "fair share" in a system you will probably never use, and if it overflows into the river, it will probably have a near-zero impact on you and your life...except that it overflowed a few months after it was brought online because it rained a bunch. Oh well. The government fined itself for being incompetent, so the feds took money from the city and the city raised taxes and rates. It's a poor rural area (I think the town has ~700 people in it), and the median income is in the low $30,000s...so a bunch of poor people couldn't afford it...so they raised rates even higher for the big evil corporations and business owners. So the people who could afford it moved out of the city and a huge multi-million dollar business deal that was in progress decided not to build here, and that took an estimated 100 jobs somewhere else. So now the city is in hot water because they're struggling to pay their part of the loan for the stupid multi-million dollar treatment plant and they want to raise rates even higher. The only two people who are making out like bandits are the mayor (who earns over 4x the median income for the area), and the person who allowed the city to spray the biosludge from the treatment plant on the largest privately-owned property in the area. It's ~50 acres....oops....they're the same person. Corrupt as hell. Thankfully, I have my own water/septic system, so I can avoid enriching the mayor. At least...I think I can. For all I know the local septic companies might dump on his property too. Oh well. At least they're cheaper than city water/sewer, and I can chose which company I want to do business with.

A right means no one can take it away from you or deprive you of it.
The first amendment acknowledges you have the right to speak freely. I can't come over and try to prevent you from speaking...and if I were to try, you can use whatever force is necessary to prevent me from harming you. Same with the second amendment. If you want to own a gun for self defense, you have that right....but no one is *forced* to provide one to you for free. The government doesn't tax the public at large to ensure you have a PA system or a gun.

Now apply that to healthcare. If you have a "right" to healthcare...why is government forcing you (or your employer) to buy insurance so that you can get healthcare?

I didn't say "enslaving doctors". It's more about enslaving people.
If you have control over your own body and your own actions, you are free.
If you are *forced* to perform actions with your body and have no control over it, you are a slave. It doesn't matter if it's the historical slavery we saw in the United States where you were forced to work for little or no pay and made to work long hours on plantations, or if you are compelled or coerced into doing something else "for your own good". Sure, one master might beat you daily and the other might only beat you once a year, but it's still slavery.

There really ought to be some sort of system that handles contracts and fraud between two or more voluntary parties. Maybe get a group of randomly selected people to hear "cases" and make decisions based on some sort of "law". We could have some sort of "judge" presiding over everything to ensure the law is followed and order is maintained for these proceedings. ;) ...as opposed to trying to sue the government for making unjust and unfair laws. I'd rather go up against a company that makes a few hundred million per year than a "company" that can pay it's legal bills (both wins and losses) from a near-unlimited pool of money taken our of everyone else's pockets.

Are you trying to tell me that regulation has zero added cost to businesses?
Or that "evil greedy insurance companies" won't raise their rates the very moment you are *forced* to buy a product from them?

It's a negotiation between a private company and a government-created monopoly. One dentist in my area refused to put up with the insurance company bullshit. He went out of business because the insurance companies refused to pay for treatment because patients weren't "in network". Before ~2008 there weren't really any "in network" dentists unless you were a huge HMO like Kaiser...but even then you could typically go to your closest dentist.

...are you saying that you don't accept that government is involved in healthcare because I haven't presented any evidence that government regulates healthcare or insurance? Or that all the government regulation and involvement doesn't increase costs?

So you're saying the government could have built a *much* better system because government is so much better than private entities...but that same government is completely incompetent when it comes to putting out bids for software performance, design, and selection?

Yup. I'd be fine with that.
I don't see anything wrong with paying for what you use as opposed to forcing some people to overpay for what they don't use and others to underpay (or not pay at all) for things they use.

I mean...that's a ridiculous example, but most people technically own "to the center line" in front of their property, so backing out to turn around isn't a problem. But I also live in the country, so I have a mile-long gravel driveway. Costs about $200/year to maintain. But in the current system the gov road is considered "right of way" so even though you own it, everyone is allowed to use it--just like the utility companies can come dig up your driveway when there's a cable fault. I don't have a problem with having a right-of-way or even public roads. But let's face it, the government pretends to tax fuel and mileage "for the roads", but it just goes into a big pool of other tax money and then they allocate the earnings to whatever the hell the want. Government roads in my area have been absolutely trashed for years and nothing gets fixed. I'm sure by now there are some pretty good formulas for calculating wear and tear on roads depending on the weight of vehicles, seasons, temperatures, rainfall, number of tires, etc...and a road tax could be split among "road users" based on various factors (like the fore-mentioned number of tires and distance traveled).

Because government-owned bridges have never collapsed and killed people?
What's so difficult to get about the situation...if I own a private bridge and charge a toll....and it collapses through my negligence...you can still sue the crap out of me. It's not like a public vs private absolves anyone from liability.

Well for one, a private company doesn't get to roll in and take the land by force, so...I guess they'd have to make a deal.
If someone came to me and said we want to buy or lease a 1/4 acre slice of your property to build a road, and we're willing to give you $5,000 and something like $0.001 per car that passes for the next 25 years (I'm just pulling numbers out of my ass), I'd jump on it. I mean...cell phone companies do it. There's a tower lease on the property next door to me. The guy rakes in about $1,000/mo just for letting them use a ~40x40 foot chunk of his land.

If cell phone companies can make it work, so can "private road companies".

Switch to Verizon. We have the fastest, safest, nation-wide coast-to-coast all-paved highway network(tm).

But here in reality, you end up voting for red team or blue team because you think one of them will skull-fuck you less than the other one, but they both do it and your vote doesn't really matter because 51% of your neighbors can decide what they think you should be *forced* to pay for.

That's a pretty bad example. I looked at starting a competing ISP because the only game in town offered 6 MB *fiber* for $125/mo, 100 MB fiber for $200/mo, and gigabit fiber for $450/mo. I looked at costs and leasing fiber to the nearest carrier hotel...turns out I could easily make it work....but then I ran into all the government regulations and legal BS I had to jump through, and realized the startup costs would be well over $150,000 before I had even connected the first user.
I realized that my local ISP was probably gouging a bit, but at their rate, I could have internet service for ~30 years before it was cheaper to start my own ISP and assume a bunch of debt/risk.

I never claimed there was. But there certainly are a handful of examples. What does it cost NASA to launch a few astronauts into orbit? What does it cost Space X (taking into account they're probably getting some sweet government funding at our expense).

What does it cost for the government to provide sewage services to people in your town verses what's the cost per house in the country to maintain their own systems? In my nearest town, water and sewer costs a *minimum* of $250/mo just to be connected and use less than I think 500 gallons per month. Maybe it's 200. I don't know. Meanwhile, in the past 14 years my total cost for water and septic came out to an average of $40.85/mo. That includes pumping, power, maintenance, and one unfortunate time when I accidentally cut a water line and had to hand-dig and patch things at 8 PM.

No, the problem is that no one has a *right* to the labor of other individuals.
You can't hold a gun to a doctor's head and tell him he *must* treat you for free.
Because of that, healthcare is not a "right". It's a good or service that can be purchased--just like new tires for your car or an ice cream cone.
Pretending it's anything else is supporting slavery.

Heh...how do you not see that government is to blame? Insurance is *highly* regulated, and so is healthcare.
I have two good examples from my lifetime. When I was a child, my parents voluntarily paid for insurance. It was easily under $100/mo, and the only out-of-pocket was anywhere from $1 to $14 copays. Fast forward a few decades to ~2006 and I was about to voluntarily purchase healthcare for my family of 7. The *very same* company my parents used when I was a kid was going to charge me ~$475/mo. The copays were a bit higher--I think up to $25/visit. No big deal. Then Obamacare landed. The cost for my entire family would have been $1,700/mo.

At the same time, I worked in healthcare. Dentists had published prices. We're talking $450 for a root canal. Then when the recession hit, the insurance companies told dentists "become a provider with us or we're telling all the union companies in our town to go to your competitor who just signed up with us and you'll lose a *ton* of money". The dentists caved. Insurance looked at their published pricing and cut it by 10%. When the dentists said they wouldn't make a profit, insurance companies said "take it or lose most of your patients". So they took it in the shorts. Every year since then, dentists have jacked their "cash price" to ensure that when insurance companies "negotiated" lower rates, they were still earning a profit.

Now a root canal can easily cost $1,500 because insurance knocks it down to $800 plus whatever portion you have to pay...and the dentist can still turn a profit...but if you're cash-pay without insurance, you'll usually have to pay the $1,500.

Insurance companies and the government regulation of them and the healthcare industry are the problem.

I still have a dentist I can cash-pay under the table and get a 50% discount.

God help you. I couldn't imagine having to integrate with the VA systems. I've seen enough of it to get a slight grasp of the absolute clusterfuck. It's no better elsewhere in healthcare. I still manage an office that has to dial up to some shitty old bulletin board system from the 90s and upload their claims via xmodem.

My company wrote a better system. It's used a several tens of private healthcare facilities. But we couldn't sell it to the VA if we wanted to. It's not that it couldn't handle the load or be modified to do what they need...it's just that we would be subject to insane amounts of government regulation and certification to even be able to put in a bid...

I have no idea about the regulation, but I would assume they are heavily regulated. Most businesses are...unless you're selling seats on a tin can to the bottom of the ocean. In the case of one of the bridges, a very wealthy family owned the land for the last ~100 years or so and hired a company to build the bridge. As for tolls...well...it's waaaaay less than what I pay in taxes every year.