Housing - build more and higher density.
Healthcare - price transparency and make it easier to shop around. Incentivize frugality.
Education - stop letting 18 year olds take out $200k in loans for poetry degrees.
It’s almost like industries protected from essential market functions become disasters! Who would have thought?
> Housing - build more and higher density.
Zoning is an incredibly hard science. Hardly any country on earth manages to get this right. Solutions are often also highly specific to local parameters. Though admittedly, the US has glaring issues with some housing areas being super spread out and low density outside of city centers.
> Healthcare - price transparency and make it easier to shop around. Incentivize frugality.
The problem of making healthcare universal and affordable has been solved plenty of times around the globe already. Obama's administration made a huge leap in the right direction, but there's more track to cover and issues to fix before the US's healthcare system becomes comparable to a say, European, equivalent. They never got the chance to finish this though.
> Education - stop letting 18 year olds take out $200k in loans for poetry degrees.
Generally having education governed by free market forces, thus giving the best education to the highest bidder, kind of goes against the US's slogan of (equal) opportunity. Not to mention all the other issues with that idea. Again, just copy any of the plenty of countries with a better system.
And don't give me any of that "But the US is a larger country and thus those solutions wouldn't work". What happened to divide and conquer? Just have administration sit at state level and you get to pretend the US is really 50 smaller countries - divide further as needed (some countries like Germany use this strategy to divide administration of their education system as well). Also there's plenty of countries with a number citizens in a comparable order of magnitude with working systems.
I don’t think that’s actually true. Western Europe is often more social democratic in principles, but often quite conservative in implementation. For example, Europe relies heavily in VAT, which has theoretical benefits but is regressive. Healthcare in Germany is paid for by an insurance contribution that is much higher for the individual, but phases out on income above about $60,000 per year. Meanwhile, in the US you pay Medicare contributions on all income, and the left is pushing to make Social Security contributions the same way.
Likewise with college. Germany would pay a lot more to offer free education if it didn’t aggressively control the pipeline of students into colleges. That idea would be alien to the left in the US, where the belief is that everyone should go to college.
Yeah, but in Germany most things are actually covered by the insurance, whereas in the US even people with really good insurance can face huge bills for things like being in the wrong hospital or being treated by the wrong doctor, which sounds utterly bizarre from a European perspective.
> Likewise with college. Germany would pay a lot more to offer free education if it didn’t aggressively control the pipeline of students into colleges. That idea would be alien to the left in the US, where the belief is that everyone should go to college.
To phrase that another way, in the US you believe that anyone with the money should be able to go to university.
Also, a key difference: taxation for public services is pretty universally supported in Europe. Even by the right wing.
Maybe. Slightly. Not really a challenge in the computer age.
Also the last paragraph of my comment above still applies.
I don't see how you can say this. My premiums literally doubled under Obamacare and now I have a new thing called "co-insurance" meaning that I pay 20% of all bills, period.
Edit: why would I be downvoted for relating my experience?
Many people saw reductions in costs under the ACA. Many people who were not insured before are insured now because of it. It sucks that you ended up paying more, but that doesn't justify "I don't know how you can say [it was a huge leap in the right direction]."
I guess I should say, it was really bad for me so I don't support it. The same could be said in the other direction though, if it was really bad for me I'm sure it was really bad for others. So maybe it wasn't universally a step in the right direction or a step in the wrong direction.
I suspect it was bad for people who were healthy and earn enough money to be disqualified from any sort of tax break or assistance.
1) Universal insurance increases the fluidity in the labor market because people are no longer forced to stay in a job to have health insurance. This can be the difference between someone starting their own small business and sticking with a large corporation for the benefits.
2) Providing access to health care for the (currently) uninsured means they can manage their conditions and prevent them from deteriorating, instead of going through a costly cycle of ER visit -> stabilization -> ER visit. Because hospitals are obligated to stabilize anyone who goes to the ER, these procedures increase hospital operating expenses which is passed on either to (1) the tax payer or (2) insured patients. The best care both health and fiscal-wise is preventative care.
3) Obamacare was a leap in the right direction, but definitely did not go all the way. A portion of that may be that it simply takes time to adjust to a new system, but as parts of the old system are rolled back, it becomes increasingly less effective. For example, universal coverage without the individual mandate is costly for insurance companies, resulting in higher premiums.
4) People make poor decisions and forgo medical insurance only to have a medical disaster happen and land them in considerable debt. The affects of this debt continue to plague them for years after. Carrying crippling debt affects not only these people but any of their dependents, so the effects compound. The usual response is that the responsible shouldn't have to pay for the irresponsibles' poor choices, but you'll pay for them either way, just in one case it's easy to quantify the effect and in the other case the effect is nebulous are hard to pin down exactly. For example, studies have shown that acute poverty has an effect on intelligence. The more people that run around stressed by their debt, the less likely they're going to make smart choices going forward with respect to their finances, politics, etc.
Assuming you believe that Obamacare was a leap in the right direction, you have to recognize that it did not go far enough or reach a stable enough point to where the benefits may have been fully realized. Even if you agree that a single payer system or a European style system is better, you are still forced to tackle the transition period during which responsibilities and policies have to reshuffle between hospitals, the government, and insurance companies. That is going to be messy any which way you cut it, but the current system is clearly broken, so it might be better to rip the bandaid off. Aside from that, the benefits wouldn't primarily be in the amount your premiums are, but in the indirect benefits of having accessible health care for all.
Yes, it didn't benefit me at all. Now I pay much more money. I think that's going to have to be addressed if you want to get people on board.
"It's great for other people, but sucks for you" isn't going to convert people. Also when someone says Obamacare was a disaster for them, they're probably telling the truth. It was no small amount of money, it significantly impacted my monthly run rate and I'm sure it hurt people who don't make as much money even more.
The only federal institutions of higher learning are the ETH / EPFL and their offshoots.
It seems to work pretty well.
No more than the government not providing access to private yachts to all citizens. Equal opportunity doesn’t mean equal buying ability.
You don't need a yacht to compete with others.
You do need education though.
*As long as you can afford it.
The reason why this is a problem is that sometimes it means decreased regulation, and sometimes it means providing more government services and more regulation. But that doesn't really fit well into the two major political parties.
For example, I'd probably seen as even more radical about healthcare than what you're writing--I'd advocate eliminating licensure laws and radically reorient the mission of the FDA in part by removing its regulatory authority over a lot of things it currently.
But I also advocate sharply reducing patents and copyright terms, and rolling out federal and municipal broadband. I also think public education needs a lot more funding.
It seems like political discussions in the US become oriented around protecting entrenched business interests, or protecting citizens through increased regulation.
This sounds like government regulation?
>Housing - build more and higher density.
How do you account for the fact that not really anybody is making housing for the poor or low income, affordable housing because it's not profitable? There's plenty of demand, but extremely low supply. Would that be accomplished with government regulation and subsidies?
>Healthcare - price transparency and make it easier to shop around. Incentivize frugality.
Richest country on Earth ever, and we need to be frugal and maybe skip our insulin prescription this month.
I don't think Government is the problem, the extreme want for extraordinary wealth and power created by this system of unchecked runaway Capitalism and that very influence of corruption on almost every representative is the problem.
> This sounds like government regulation?
No - the reason students can take outrageous loans is that the government enforces that they always get paid back. There is no bankruptcy discharge for student debt. Consequently, universities increase prices as the government allows students to take more debt. No bank in the world would provide a $200k loan for a poetry degree if it could be discharged in bankruptcy.
> >Housing - build more and higher density.
> How do you account for the fact that not really anybody is making housing for the poor or low income, affordable housing because it's not profitable? There's plenty of demand, but extremely low supply. Would that be accomplished with government regulation and subsidies?
The amount of red tape and bureaucracy required for building new housing, and other requirements like minimum lot sizes, makes it more economical to build higher-end units. But even with that, more total supply filters down and helps stabilize prices, including the lower end. The ultimate left-wing fantasy is rent control, as if regulating prices by government fiat magically solves the problem.
> >Healthcare - price transparency and make it easier to shop around. Incentivize frugality.
> Richest country on Earth ever, and we need to be frugal and maybe skip our insulin prescription this month.
No, but if you were able to shop around for a major, but scheduled, surgery such as a hip replacement, you may choose a cheaper option if you were appropriately incentivized. People already fly to foreign countries to get procedures done, because travel, hotel, and the procedure are still cheaper and higher-quality than the American healthcare system.
Edit: in the case of education and medical, administrative costs are growing tremendously. Not sure if that's because of excessive government regulation but it would be interesting if someone could untangle that.
https://www.amazon.com/Overcharged-Americans-Much-Health-Car...