Can the Health Care Cartel Be Gotten Rid of and How

¶ … stakeholders in " Chapter 4, Alignment with the rest of society " -- which stakeholder(s) do you think is the most important? Why do you think so? Please state your reasons in using one policy analysis example.

The most important stakeholders are the patients because they are the ones who pay or should pay for the service. But what they want does not matter because like most things in America, the choice is out of their hands. Health care is run by a cartel, just like the banking sector is run by the Federal Reserve cartel. Health care providers are subject to all manner of controls even though they run a private business -- the way they choose to conduct their business is largely out of their hands. They provide the services that individuals want or need -- but at the same time the bureaucracy involved within the health care cartel and the government and the law makers and the special interest groups all push the provider into a corner and take away the free market so that there is no real competition in the market place.

Policy "wonks" want a "system that is efficient, coherent, and rational and that provides effective care to the relevant populace" (McLaughlin, McLaughlin, 2014, p. 96). That system could easily be had if government and insurance companies did not get involved. Why are health care prices so high in America? What does it cost a day's wage just for the simplest check-up for a child? Does the education cartel have anything to do with it? (Why for example must doctors spend so much money on education when they can easily learn all they need to know on the job, in training? The answer is because colleges have to make money ... ). The simple reason why the system does not work is because the system is designed to fleece everyone. So while health care providers must "compete" with money (not from customers but from the State -- which is broke almost everywhere in America), "analysts" and policy makers still have the gall to take themselves seriously by thinking that they can somehow make a fundamentally flawed system run by cartels who control government, business, education, and finance into something that is benign for all. But such is the American Dream.

One policy that is "analyzed" is that of the "free rider ... who could otherwise pay but avoids doing so while still relying on the system for help" (p. 96). The authors suggest that a fix to this solution would be to require motorcycle riders to wear helmets and "post a bond to cover their bills" as well as be willing to donate their organs to eliminate the unnecessary risk their riding without helmets poses to the rest of the "payers." This solution is offensive to decency. First off, there are no "payers" or "free riders" anymore because health care and insurance are so outrageously expensive no one but the very rich could actually afford them if they had to pay. Second, this is socialism, which Americans should reject by virtue of their nationhood, but which they don't because since the cartels came into power they have convinced most so caught up in the rat race just trying to stay above board that there really is no other way -- that being gouged and fleeced is just the way it has to be.

Socialized health care is a disaster unless those in charge are virtuous and that virtue acts as an example to all others to act virtuously and to not try to gouge their fellow man or get "their slice of the pie." But we do not have virtuous leaders at the top: we have financiers and business men whose primary aim is to get rich. There is no virtue in their conduct or transcendental principle in their system. That is the problem. No amount of socialism or any other form of --ism can fix a system that is run by people who have no care or love for the people they serve. It is the people who are the major stakeholders in health care -- and yet they are the ones who are least considered. That which is most considered are the dead presidents whose pictures appear on the Federal Reserve notes that everyone believes to be worth something.

2. The author stated several policy alternatives/options in Chapter 5 "Federal-level alternatives: access to care: oligopolistic competition alternatives" -- which alternative here is the most important? Why do you think so? Please state your reasons in 3+ sentences.

The most important is the free market competition alternative but this is never going to be a reality in America because America is a business and a monopoly, not a place where a free market can flourish. Here, everything is controlled by cartels that have their fingers in everything. Anything that is big and makes money -- every sector -- they are there dictating how that sector should be operated. Health care is no different.

The way it should work is that the market should dictate prices. If health care is too high -- how does it make sense that the solution is to make everyone pay for it anyway (which is what universal health care would do)? No, let the market dictate prices. If the "government's role is to try to mitigate those factors that might make the market imperfect," the government should go after every cartel that has enslaved the market (p. 110). But the government will not do that because the government is controlled by the same cartels.

This expectation by people that their government will fix everything if it just gets involved is ridiculous. Such people do not realize what sort of country they live in. They are too used to thinking that their "voice" matters or that they have representatives who will listen to them and do as they say. The fact is that representatives do as they are told by the individuals who give them money to get them elected. Politicking is a career for them. Their bosses are the cartels. It is that simple. And since the cartels run the government and the marketplace, expecting a free market in America is like going to a con artist and expecting a fair deal. It is not going to happen -- unless something significant happens to fundamentally change America -- that is, to remove the cartels from power.