Are you deliberately missing the point? I said it was legal to emphasize the fact that it's accepted because of their ability to manipulate the system, which effectively renders any idea of a "free market" moot. What's more, it allows them to LIE to you! They tell you that you're getting your prescription drugs for $4, then make you pay more in taxes because of it! Your real cost is many times that $4 fee.

Your first sentence is pushing it, CWT.

Is this article what your oft sought-after "free market" is about?

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

From your link:

The laws enacted by companies like Walmart constitute government intervention! Tax rebates are subsidization, and Walmart uses those to drive other businesses out. It's as far from a free market as you can get!

Not sure I agree with what you're saying. If I bought the meds down the street for $10, would my taxes go down? I don't think they're they are telling a lie.

I think every single business out there manipulates every thing they can legally manipulate. If society thinks they shouldn't be doing that, then society should pass a law making it illegal.... otherwise, it's just maximizing market potential. It's not at all different than Kroger giving coupons or discounts to regular customers.... or a 7-11 selling gas 2 cents cheaper than their competition, etc.

Certainly agree that corporations have tax loopholes big enough to drive freight trains full of cash through. And one would be foolish not to take advantage of what the Congress gives you by way of tax breaks.

The fact that you and I don't like it is irrelevant.

But isn't this what truly got Wall Street in trouble, i.e. little or no regulation?

Loopholes are quirks in the law that everyone can take advantage of. That's not at all what's going on here:
You and I can't get these, and neither can small businesses. Look at the list of items that define a free market:

1. no regulation -- Walmart is making their own rules, so this is effectively true for them, but not their competition.
2. no subsidization -- Massive subsidization (Couldn't sell $4 prescriptions without it!)
3. no single monetary system -- We still have that!
4. no governmental monopolies -- By subsidizing Walmart at the expense of small businesses, we effectively grant Walmart a government sponsored monopoly.

The point here is that Walmart is part of the problem with healthcare in the US, not the solution.

Nobody's saying that an ideal free market would be ideal in reality. Regulation is necessary to create and maintain a free market because without it a few powerful groups will collude to control the market. That's the problem with the entire US economy: we pretend that we have a free market when the truth is that a relatively few corporations have far too much control.

A contradiction in terms.

Not really. Markets can't exist without rules. The important thing is to keep the marketers from being the rule makers.

Can we please get back to the medical topic as there is already lots of threads on free market stuff.

It's all the same thing, really. Cost shifting is a nasty way to do business, and it's become standard practice throughout the economy. If health care is different it's because there's more of it in health care. Too many insurance plans and not enough regulation. Much of what regulation does exist is too much in favor of the insurance companies.

For the past 50 years, the single largest problem with US health care is we have lacked the courage to throw the private insurance model out the window and start with a new system. Politics (read that as money and influence) has always been the problem.

I fear that as the games begin with three opposing plans, our courage will again be tested. Just hope we fare better this time round and we actually address actually providing health care for everyone.

Still think Hillary had a better plan.

Anything short of health care for all will leave holes that will eventually be exploited by you know who.

Whoa! Am I seeing the birth of a new and more radical AEHurst? :cool:
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Hardly. I do think the government that governs least, governs best. But it's hard to ignore the facts.... the private sector has had decades to make health care in the US work and has failed miserably even at an extravagant cost. Time to build a system that works.

And frankly, I'm not too far from coming to the same conclusion on energy. Not quite there yet, but close.:)

I have more hope for energy because as the technology improves it cannot remain centralized. With health care, most of the power will either be with a small number of insurance companies or with the government. I'd trust the government over a small number of companies any day of the week. With energy, we have a small number of producers now, but that will change as solar and wind expand into individual businesses, homes and cars.

How about do it yourself health care? You provide the diagnosis, they provide the treatment.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/11...sis/index.html

That's kind of what we have now! Doctors today need to be businessmen, and complicated diagnosis is time consuming. ;)

What about genetics, medical health and bankruptcies?
 

Sounds like she's lucky because she's finding out early (which means no serious complications) what she developed and it's treatable. It's when you developed a serious complication due to something diagnosed late is when it can hit you in the pocket book pretty hard. Which brings me to another issues involving bankruptcies due to illnesses.

In terms of people going bankrupt due to medical care, would it matter if people were genetically tested early in life and told their pre-dispositions to diseases and other ailments and then given specific advice on prevention and treatment for those things that they are genetically susceptible to developing? Would this help financially? Would it also help us to focus more of our research on what may harm the majority of the population as a whole in let's say 30 to 50 years down the road. For example, if we knew that most children today are being born with autism, would it be worthwhile to federally fund such projects so that we could stop, treat, prevent, or reduce it's occurrence?

With our current system, I suspect that information would leave one unemployed and uninsurable. Certainly would be useful in another system, though. Still wouldn't want that info available to anybody but me.

It likely that we will be in another system in the next couple of decades. I was thinking along the lines of national health care. In a national health care system, information like this can be used to keep cost down. Of course if it's collected by the government, all identities are removed from the data.

If you wouldn't want anyone to know, then you probably wouldn't do genetic testing unless it was an in home kit which they are starting to sell these days.