Re:Why is China smashing its tech industry?
by jpetso on Wednesday August 04, 2021 @06:53AM
(#28059525)
The difference is lack of competition.
In housing, that's zoning for single-family houses which limits affordability and provides exclusivity vs. apartments or boarding houses, except in downtown cores which aren't enough supply to really move the needle (and expensive for other reasons).
In US healthcare, it appears there is regulatory capture from insurance companies and private health care providers, both successfully ganging up on the government to minimize real competition or strict price regulation.
Without real competition for a product that consumers can't feasibly opt out of, no heavyweight market participant interested in driving the price down, that's what you get. But yeah, testing is good too. Get the government to try out 10 years of broadly available at-cost housing competition and public healthcare, then evaluate :-P
In housing, that's zoning for single-family houses which limits affordability and provides exclusivity vs. apartments or boarding houses, except in downtown cores which aren't enough supply to really move the needle (and expensive for other reasons).
In US healthcare, it appears there is regulatory capture from insurance companies and private health care providers, both successfully ganging up on the government to minimize real competition or strict price regulation.
Without real competition for a product that consumers can't feasibly opt out of, no heavyweight market participant interested in driving the price down, that's what you get. But yeah, testing is good too. Get the government to try out 10 years of broadly available at-cost housing competition and public healthcare, then evaluate :-P