Joe -- you make a good point there. ccBill and Epoch do allow more folks to take credit cards. But it's not enshrined in any law.
Would you *require* everyone who wanted to take credit cards to go through a 3rd party payment provider?
Because the universal health system in Massachusetts requires all residents to buy insurance. And I think the plan in California that just failed in their legislature worked the same way. Just like in Canada, you must use the Canadian government system. It is against the law for someone to even buy private health insurance there. (they don't want the competition)
We were all taught in school that monopolies are bad. A monopoly is a situation where there is only one provider of a service... like the old Ma Bell phone company.
In economics they call a situation where there is one buyer of a service a monopsony.
Sorry - but creating those kinds of things via federal law is really the wrong direction to go in.
I think that I'm politically a moderate. Let's have state and local governments be there for catostrophic heath care. The federal government can help out. Same with Medicare, maybe just try to make it more market oriented so it costs less.
You guys constantly rail against how terrible the government operates with Bush as President. Either from the embarrassing Katrina response, or broken borders, or inept military plans, or inability to pass a budget - the list goes on and on. It is astonishing to me that you would want to entrust this same nearly unaccountable body with a vital task such as this.
Steve :morning:
(Off to the gym! Saturday is leg day)
Bookmarks