> Again the root cause isn’t the profit motive, that’s just a side effect.
That's just utterly naive or politically biased. The profit motive is what causes those regulations in the first place! It has always been like that, especially in the states.
Don't try and create some sort of a fairy tale place where the profit motive won't try to rig regulations in their favor, they will always try to, this is what the incentive to make more and more profit creates.
> The profit motive is what causes those regulations in the first place! It has always been like that, especially in the states.
Actually, that's not true. The regulations were created as a result of a series of well-intentioned but catastrophic policy decisions, starting in World War 2. FDR instituted a wage cap to discourage private sector employment, which resulted in employers using non-wage benefits to participate in a competitive labor market. After a decade or so, it became an expected benefit (sort of like company cars, at the time). Eventually around the '70s, the Federal government decided it was time to incentivize remaining employers to provide health insurance by making premiums tax deductible; again a well-intentioned attempt to expand access. It finally all culminated in ACA which _mandated_ that employers provide health insurance. None of this can be attributed to lobbying, almost all of it attributed to well-intentioned regulations gone awry, not the profit motive.
In fact, the best shot we have right now of decoupling health insurance from employment is the ICHRA (https://ichra.com/), which allows employers to fulfill their healthcare obligations by providing tax-advantaged cash to employees that can be used to cover health insurance premiums on the individual market; and I imagine that came about due to lobbying.
Again, the easiest way to falsify a causal line between the profit motive and the current outcome is by finding instances of markets wherein there is a profit motive, but with differing outcomes. That's exactly what we see in Medicare Advantage, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.
> Don't try and create some sort of a fairy tale place where the profit motive won't try to rig regulations in their favor, they will always try to, this is what the incentive to make more and more profit creates.
No disagreements that industries will try to rig regulations in their favor. This is true everywhere in the world, and yet we see wildly differing outcomes. Notably, I'm yet to see an argument explaining away the Medicare Part A/B vs Part C outcomes in the US.
That's just utterly naive or politically biased. The profit motive is what causes those regulations in the first place! It has always been like that, especially in the states.
Don't try and create some sort of a fairy tale place where the profit motive won't try to rig regulations in their favor, they will always try to, this is what the incentive to make more and more profit creates.