Health insurance rates lower with ObamaCare

[Cats Cats Cats]

All you need is a monopoly and then there is no more competition to drive the cost down.  It's cheaper to sue a competitor uut of existence or buy them out than to allow them to drop the price of the product.  Profiteering is the natural result of no regulation. The point of a business is to make as much money possible without breaking the law (maybe just getting caught breaking the law).  Oil would be easiest example of monopoly/profiteering due to 0 regulation.  You have to buy it and only a few companies produce/import/export.  So sure.. You can ride your bike everywhere and not buy oil.  But oil is a finite resource.  Just raise and wait.  I wish we could do an experiment and tell the Oil companies they are free to fix prices become every larger monopolies and see what happens.  That is the end game.

What is the value of a heart surgery?  How long are you going to shop around for life saving surgery after you have had a heart attack?  You are not in a position to negotiate that price and just because you paid $200,000 for the surgery doesn't mean that is the value.

[Gaspar]

All you need is a monopoly and then there is no more competition to drive the cost down.  It's cheaper to sue a competitor uut of existence or buy them out than to allow them to drop the price of the product.  Profiteering is the natural result of no regulation. The point of a business is to make as much money possible without breaking the law (maybe just getting caught breaking the law).  Oil would be easiest example of monopoly/profiteering due to 0 regulation.  You have to buy it and only a few companies produce/import/export.  So sure.. You can ride your bike everywhere and not buy oil.  But oil is a finite resource.  Just raise and wait.  I wish we could do an experiment and tell the Oil companies they are free to fix prices become every larger monopolies and see what happens.  That is the end game.

What is the value of a heart surgery?  How long are you going to shop around for life saving surgery after you have had a heart attack?  You are not in a position to negotiate that price and just because you paid $200,000 for the surgery doesn't mean that is the value.

All you need is a monopoly and then there is no more competition to drive the cost down.  
Monopolies owe their very existence on regulation, and restricted market entry as a result
Manufacturing and commercial monopolies owe their origin not to a tendency imminent in a capitalist economy but to governmental interventionist policy directed against free trade and laissez faire. – Ludwig Mises

It's cheaper to sue a competitor uut of existence or buy them out than to allow them to drop the price of the product.  
No it is not. It is cheaper to compete.  Otherwise we would live in a very different world, without a pharmacy or gas station on every corner.  
Competition is the act of "outpleasing" your competitors to win over the consumers. – Walter Williams

Profiteering is the natural result of no regulation.
No, Profiteering is the act of making a profit via unethical means.  Using government regulation to limit competition is a form of profiteering, therefore at the heart of profiteering is lobbying.  Creating artificial scarcity is another form of profiteering.
The economic miracle that has been the United States was not produced by socialized enterprises, by government-unon-industry cartels or by centralized economic planning. It was produced by private enterprises in a profit-and-loss system. And losses were at least as important in weeding out failures, as profits in fostering successes. Let government succor failures, and we shall be headed for stagnation and decline. – Milton Friedman

The desire of businessmen for profits is what drives prices down unless forcibly prevented from engaging in price competition, usually by governmental activity. – Thomas Sowell

The point of a business is to make as much money possible without breaking the law (maybe just getting caught breaking the law).  Oil would be easiest example of monopoly/profiteering due to 0 regulation.  
There are currently thousands of regulations on the oil industry from dozens of government agencies.  It may be the most regulated industry in the world. You should try to get a permit to drill a well sometime.  
The Ten Commandments contain 297 words. The Bill of Rights is stated in 463 words. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address contains 266 words. A recent federal directive to regulate the price of cabbage contains 26,911 words. – The Atlanta Journal

He who regulates everything by laws, is more likely to arouse vices than reform them. – Spinoza

You have to buy it and only a few companies produce/import/export.  So sure.. You can ride your bike everywhere and not buy oil.  But oil is a finite resource.  Just raise and wait.  I wish we could do an experiment and tell the Oil companies they are free to fix prices become every larger monopolies and see what happens.  That is the end game.
It seems that would be the push the green energy industry needs?  However you are wrong.  50 years ago. . .when there was far less regulation on the oil industry there were far more producers.  The product was far cheaper, and much more scarce (there was limited technology to pull up, refine and transport the product).  Today the industry is heavily regulated, employs hundreds of lobbyists, and as a result competitive entry is almost non-existant.

What is the value of a heart surgery?  How long are you going to shop around for life saving surgery after you have had a heart attack?  You are not in a position to negotiate that price and just because you paid $200,000 for the surgery doesn't mean that is the value.
A physician to exploits his patients won't have patients for very long.

We live in very different worlds.

It seems you confuse profiteering with profit. Lets look at another example.  Something simpler.  Lets look at the entertainment industry, in particular, licensing.

Say a company in china makes a 7" plastic doll for Mattel.  It costs Mattel .06 for each doll.  They are one of 6 companies licensed by Marvel Comics to manufacture that doll.  Mattel agrees to pay Marvel a licensing fee for each doll.  Mattel also agrees to set a minimum retail price for that doll of $26, and only produce 88,000 units.  With packaging, marketing and merchandising, Mattel is poised to make a profit of over 1000%.  That is not profiteering.

Now, Mattel has competition, but Marvel has an agreement with them as well that states all 7" figures of the same character must carry a minimum retail price of $26.  So Marvel has established a baseline price for this particular figure across an industry, not based on cost, but based on what they perceve as market value.  This also is not profiteering.

Now say my son walks into Toys R' Us with his Christmas money, excited because he has waited all year to buy the new Man of Steel Superman action figure, only to find that they are completely sold out of their allotted stock of the doll, not because of demand, but because of a few individuals engaging in a form of profiteering called arbitrage profiteering (similar to scalping).  This is where a person or group of people purchase a scarce product or resource for the purpose of resale on a secondary market at a profit without adding any value to the transaction.  If my son wants to buy the doll he has to purchase it on Craig's List for $100. This is profiteering.

Hopefully that offers a clearer explanation.

[Cats Cats Cats]

I like your concept that when you are taken to the hospital unconscious due to X issue.  you get to choose which surgeon operates on you and negotiate price.  Good luck on that.

Also profiteering is gouging of required items like gas/electricity/food/water.  Obviously your son doesn't need a toy to survive.  It has the value in which people pay for it.  If that's $100 the too bad your son doesn't deserve to have it or should earn more money.  He also needs to put more work into trying to buy o e for the price he wants to pay.  What should happen is the toy store raise their price to $100.

[Cats Cats Cats]

I can see some regulation causing monopolies.  It really comes down to cash you can spend to bury people.

[Gaspar]

Meh. I see we are spinning our wheels here.  Good luck in your world.

[Gaspar]

I assume you already know that was the goal?

The insurance companies understand that there may be little chance of avoiding what will ultimately become a single payer platform.  Fortunately, in this country it will not work as it did (used to) in Canada or GB, because we have provisions in our constitution that won't allow government to imprison people for seeking other options.  If single payer becomes reality, there will be two tiers of medicine and the insurance companies will be at the heart of that.  You will be able to (or companies will be able to offer) expensive private plans with private physicians, or you will go to the Gubment nurse.

I see two possible scenarios in the next several years.

1. The fed cannot implement Obamacare on-time because of the expense, the hospitals and physicians cannot re-tool to meet regulations, and public support for the concept continues to erode until it's elimination becomes the primary issue for all candidates.

2. A bill for the expansion of medicare coverage for all is offered to replace Obamacare and the new promise for a single payer system is introduced.  We get a two tier system with most of us striving to escape the gubment system for the more attractive private offerings.  If barriers and regulations are erected that make this more difficult we will see a medical "black market" arise.

Unfortunately the third, and only intelligent option, is already off the table, because it does not serve politicians on either side.

3. Allow health insurance companies to compete nationwide without collusion through individual state regulation.  This competition will drop individual prices to compete with group policies, and companies will be able to offer employees options from multiple insurance suppliers to fit individual needs instead of one-size-fits-all-according-to-contract deals.

You see Mr. Sheen, the concept is amazingly simple. . .free markets (like nature) always work the same way unless some interference is introduced, and when that happens, the producers always struggle to maintain margin, and the consumer to satisfy desire.  In free markets both parties win, because the consumer will not buy something unless he/she values that something more than the money/labor necessary to purchase it.  When you introduce mandates, regulations, and controls, someone must win and someone must lose, and because of that, you introduce a struggle to overcome that loss.  We see this in the constant necessity for government to "reform" every failing social program.  

Government control gives rise to fraud, suppression of Truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity. Above all, it unmans the people and deprives them of initiative, it undoes the teaching of self-help... – Gandhi

So back to reality, it looks like perhaps my first scenario is becoming more likely.  I think we will start to see a growing number of politicians on both the left and the right running on a platform that includes the elimination of Obamacare, but only if they are interested in votes.  

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/06/18781204-health-care-laws-unpopularity-reaches-new-highs?lite

[Hoss]

So back to reality, it looks like perhaps my first scenario is becoming more likely.  I think we will start to see a growing number of politicians on both the left and the right running on a platform that includes the elimination of Obamacare, but only if they are interested in votes. 

Wow, now quoting your own posts.

[guido911]

This is not good.

http://www.breitbart.com/system/wire/upiUPI-20130614-235806-4920


But this is good:

http://www.breitbart.com/system/wire/upiUPI-20130614-235806-4920