our healthcare system sucks because we tolerate these parasites on our system that have to "profit" for some reason. there's no competition. so they just siphon profit and buy off our legislators and regulators to keep the money train flowing

they are natural monopolies

they are monopolies alone, no government needed to make them

you don't spend billions to build a hospital across the street from another. there's no free market. we're not talking about nail salons

you don't go shopping for an oncologist based on cost. you don't shop around for hospitals while you are having a heart attack. there's no capitalism here

so we need government control, rather than make believing a magic free market fairy fixes things

i'm not a socialist or a statist. specifically on the topic of natural monopolies *alone*, universal payer is the least worst option

citation: all of our social and economic peers: uk, canada, japan, germany, australia, etc: they spend far less on healthcare, and have higher quality healthcare. and it's all government controlled

our bullshit system persists because our government is corrupted. we need to fix the corruption, then kick out the parasites

the lawyer seeks out the victim

if you ever are the victim of a newsworthy accident/ crime, you will get cold called by a number of lawyers, who want to represent you pro bono

because such cases gild their CV, get their name out there. free advertising

some lawyers, they seek out interesting strange and noteworthy cases only. out of ego, fame, crank cause, adrenaline, hero complex, whatever:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

etc.

you mean you're a hopeless idealist who think things have to be perfect?

i'm glad you agree we need to get rid of corruption

but i'm mystified how you think the country's obvious success has nothing to do with democracy, however imperfectly implemented

i've been commenting on slashdot for years. there's always this steady drip of comments from grammar (punctuation?) nazis like yourself. do you see me changing or caring?

if you don't like the formatting of my comment, don't read it. i don't owe you anything. you're not paying me

this is an informal comment board, not a doctoral thesis. get over yourself

yes, exactly

and that's exactly the next step with a weakened government: corporation owned armies abusing you with no recourse for your rights

oh, i'm making that up? it's science fiction?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

By the early 1890s, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency employed more agents than there were members of the standing army of the United States of America.

During the labor strikes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, businessmen hired the Pinkerton Agency to infiltrate unions, supply guards, keep strikers and suspected unionists out of factories, as well as recruiting goon squads to intimidate workers. One such confrontation was the Homestead Strike of 1892, in which Pinkerton agents were called in to reinforce the strikebreaking measures of industrialist Henry Clay Frick, acting on behalf of Andrew Carnegie.[citation needed] The ensuing battle between Pinkerton agents and striking workers led to the deaths of seven Pinkerton agents and nine steelworkers.[4] The Pinkertons were also used as guards in coal, iron, and lumber disputes in Illinois, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia as well as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921. The organization was pejoratively called the "Pinks" by its opponents.

now remember dick cheney and his adventure with blackwater

weaken the government and blackwater expands exponentially, and corporate goons are now stepping on your throat: "get back to work slave, i mean citizen. if you have a problem with our enforcement activities, please see the corporation owned courts, or attempt to fight our legion of well-funded lawyers when you can barely get enough to eat, because we've let 'the market decide' your salary"

you look around the world at kleptocracies, warlords, mafias... you really fucking believe government has a monopoly on force?

if there is no government army, it's not suddenly peace and happiness, it's fucking hell

where do you morons come from with your bullshit unexamined beliefs?

First, identify the whites and asian males. They are the most predisposed to learning computing.

Action? What does that mean? Does government claim to be able to express favorable control (whatever that is) on climate? Where I work we labor to control simple engineering dynamical systems. Do these government charlatans claim to be able to control climate with political strictures? Ignore them. 6 billion people in the world seeking a better life will have an impact on the environment. Deal with it.

we have competing ambulance services here in the usa too

but they will take you to a further away hospital they have financial agreements with (fuck your actual health emergency)

and if you don't have insurance you get a life destroying huge bill (because health insurance is a "choice")

agreed (with the european part, fuck your grammar demands)

http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

you really can't conceive of the simple obvious fact that running all that fiber is fucking expensive?

oh, EUR, euro

you guys understand the concept of a natural monopoly so much better than americans

in the usa we believe letting a rent seeking parasite siphon more money for shoddier service, and buying off our government to keep the arrangement, such as with healthcare, is "capitalism." and anyone who suggests dealing with natural monopolies as they should be dealt with: government control or heavily regulated, as you describe, is "evil socialism"

propagandized morons

additionally, no one wants their roads constantly dug up by various companies all the time, or the poles by their house an ugly rats nest of various cables

better: one cable, fractionally leased

as tech improves and one cable means much more bandwidth, government progressively upgrades the single cable, and has more bandwidth to lease

i see that as a half measure but i still approve, it is an improvement over the status quo elsewhere. how expensive is your cable bill?