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Hospitals operate on very slim margins, and due to many uninsured people using them for basic care, they are constantly taking a hit with people who can't pay, therefore they charge those that can, much more to stay in business.

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ORIGINAL: samboct

It's been a Republican mantra that deregulating the economy helps grow businesses. Some business groups spout the same mantra. But if we take a look at the industries where we all pay a big piece of our paycheck, I'd say that deregulation has lead to lousy service and higher prices. It's not surprising that corporate profits are up- the money we should be spending on new products and services is instead being spent on existing services-with higher prices. Let's look at a few...

Telecommunications: Back in the 90s, telco firms were showing charts that as a percentage of GDP, their share was going up. As consumers, we've seen staggeringly priced "plans" where we're spending in excess of $1k/yr on access to networks where the technology was largely developed with taxpayer dollars. But what's worse is that this industry uses "contracts" to enforce payment- contracts which are akin to something that the mob would understand, rather than any reasonable business agreement. These companies have provided shoddy service, lied about coverage, pricing, and cell phone battery lives, and we have few alternatives due to the barriers of entry into this business. If there were real competition in this industry, prices would be a fraction of what they are today, and we'd have better service. Deregulation has helped here?


This is a case where deregulation has actually helped---Yes they suck, but they sucked worse before. When telecom was even more regulated, AT&T held a monopoly and was screwing people. They broke it up and started to deregulate. Notice how you actually have a choice in plans and providers and the service actually comes at differents costs. Not the case with other utilities, you pay what you pay.



Insurance: The largest industry on the planet, insurance firms have never been of sterling character since they get paid before they deliver services. And their viewpoint is that services constitute "losses". So we have astronomical health care costs where the insurance companies often deny coverage- to the point where more expensive treatments are needed, homes that we think are protected from disaster aren't- witness how many people lost everything in Katrina, and even what should be simple things like auto accidents aren't paid for. (Personal example- my brother's parked car was hit and a door folded forward- the insurance company of the driver who hit the car refused to pay.)


Agreed, they need to be more responsive to the consumer, and the government could require better capitalization. On the other hand, when you play with fire you get burned. Living FL (or LA) should require you to get a special hurricane only policy. The reason most people don't have em is they are bloody expensive. However, there is a really good reason for it, hurricanes destroy a lot of shit, and someone, like me in CO, doesn't want to pay for some ass living in a wood home in a hurricane zone. We have the same griping every time there is a forrest fire in the mountains. Some people have the fire insurance, others don't, it is your risk.

Hospitals: Why does an operation to replace a hip in the US cost 3x what it does in Europe? Can't argue that the care is significantly better? Anybody see a relation with outsize hospital profits?


I have one word for you: Lawyers. It isn't really just the cost of lawsuits either. Most of those costs are related to the worry about getting sued. Too many tests, forms, and hoops to jump through to indemnify the docs. Also, they have to have massive legal resources on retainer or on staff or whatever, just to be safe. Docs here are paranoid and overworked and they don't even make that much money anymore.


Banks: Banks have been raising fees on ATMs which were supposed to reduce their costs to the point where some of us are just carrying more cash, rather than relying on what have become usurious charges to get our damn money....And do we need to look at the bailouts and the mortgage meltdown? Look at the states that had strong regulations on mortgages such as New York- which learned that after the first depression, no exotic financial instruments which allowed banks to become landlords- to states like Florida, Nevada, Arizona, and California which didn't. We pay way too much interest on credit cards as well-money that should go to other purposes. Given current technology- checks should beat credit cards. Why don't we have electronic checks instead? Debit cards don't count- I don't see why Visa or Mastercard deserves a couple of percent per transaction.


Yup, these fuckers need a sharp stick in the ass. But before you go off blaming this all one party or another, looking into what the financial community gives to both parties. Both sides are the whore puppets to the Wall Street masters. That consumer protection act the Dems passed recently, what a joke (credit cards are even nastier now than the were before). Why not bring back Glass-Steagall? It's repeall utimately led to the recent bank/mortgage meltdown. That was repealled in a bipartisan manner in congress and signed off by Clinton.



One of the purposes of regulations in an economy is to keep the playing field level. By allowing large corporations a free hand to swindle their customers with the mantra of deregulation, it's another reason why our economy isn't growing. The money we should have for new goods and services is being swallowed up to bolster corporate profits on existing goods and services.

Sam

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ORIGINAL: StrangerThan

IThere's all different kinds of insurance. Auto and home seem pretty cheap to me, but I'll agree on the medical stuff.

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This is a case where deregulation has actually helped---Yes they suck, but they sucked worse before. When telecom was even more regulated, AT&T held a monopoly and was screwing people. They broke it up and started to deregulate. Notice how you actually have a choice in plans and providers and the service actually comes at differents costs. Not the case with other utilities, you pay what you pay.

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ORIGINAL: outhere69

Well, you can ask Californians what happened after the electric utilities deregulated.

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ORIGINAL: Real0ne

Great thread sam, way to much for me to comment on right now but basically corporate size should be capped, conglomerates and all trusts worldwide should be abolished because they can hide shit and we cant. Starting with the gubafia.  Anything too big beyond that should be part of the gubmint, as a service not citizen contract, the banks should be completely elimiated and run under the treasury, they use our property to fund the secure the money and we get no benefit from it what so ever.   The banks are the root of all evil and should be abolished, corps should have charters with sunset clauses voted on by the community.
The gubafia agencies are what ruined medical in the first place and turned it from a practice to a business.  Might sound outlandish without going into detail but most of these are literally criminal maggots and the only way to cure it is ti cut it off.

Look at burzynski with his cancer cure (antineoplastons) since 197x.

http://vimeo.com/24821365

They indicted him 5 times, and lost, it even got the attention from congress who had a hearing on WTF do they think they are doing, then they throw him in jail while they file and steal his patents.

We may as well face it we are officially on a fast track to a banana republic.