Quote from: marcus_of_augustus on November 07, 2013, 09:22:15 PM

Quote from: giantdragon on November 07, 2013, 06:54:47 PM

Quote from: DeathAndTaxes on November 07, 2013, 04:30:55 PM

Why don't cellphones still cost $2,000 and cellphone plans cost $0.35 per minute?

So why a college degree doesn't costs $1000 or health insurance $100 per year?!

Because the State is heavily involved in both education and healthcare ... regulating, interfering in private transactions in these areas and in the worst cases totally monopolising the provision of them.

Also bidding up the prices. Consider even if the state did nothing else besides just heavily subsidizing certain healthcare companies. Seems benign enough, right? But in fact that would massively bid up prices for all inputs in that industry, causing a "crowding out" effect where the inputs become artificially too expensive for most non-subsidized firms to compete. Companies go out of business until only the ones joined at the hip with the government are still around, bloated monopolies or oligopolies with very little profit motive. Then to compensate the government will start providing free healthcare, driving up prices more. Total clusterf*ck. Not to mention endless reams of regulation on top of all that. And people wonder why healthcare is expensive.