Hacker News Reader

Comment by jstanley | Hacker News Reader

This isn't capitalism. If it was capitalism, somebody would come along and offer to let you give birth in their buildings for less than $32k.

I'm not sure what is going on here, but it isn't capitalism.

View on HN

Crony capitalism.

"Crony capitalism is an economy in which businesses thrive not as a result of risk taken for them, but rather, as a return on money amassed through a nexus between a business class and the political class."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism

(exactly what I explained in a separate comment on this thread :-))

You mean it isn't capitalism as it's supposed to work in theory.

But it is capitalism like it turns out in practice when the population fears "socialism" and caps on corporate greed.

It's Capitalism applied to something that doesn't have a market, shouldn't have a market, and who's participants are unable to properly participate in it in any way that resembles a market.

The health sector is one of the most regulated sectors in the US. It has nothing to do with free market capitalism.

And yet for profit entities proliferate it at every level, and the constant drumbeat of people against nationalization is for people to be "smart" consumers of healthcare, as if you can make an informed market-based decision about which provider to use while in the back of a damn ambulance.

> as if you can make an informed market-based decision about which provider to use while in the back of a damn ambulance.

That's a pretty bad straw man argument. Of course you have to pick an insurer before the accident happens otherwise it's not insurance.

How does the ambulance know where my insurer wants me to go? For that matter, why is it the responsibility of EMT's to, whilist driving at high speed through traffic and attempting to keep my organs in my torso, go through my insurance info and figure out which hospital I should go to and potentially risk both my and their safety with a longer trip, to respect the wishes of a corporation which barely knows I exist?

How about instead, we just fix people? And figure out the rest of the BS later?

This is a good argument for why we should reject meta-narratives for how the world should work. Capitalism (and/or consumerism?) is one such narrative. Ignore or criticize data points that don't fit the meta-narrative. In that sense, Scandinavian policy is light years ahead, as it is pragmatic and have reasonably high amounts of evidence-driven policy (disclaimer, i live in Sweden).

Middlemanism? A promiscuous value-chain of “service providers”. The capitalism part is that the top terminates at a public corporation or private equity firm.

It's mainly to minimize risk. If everything goes well, home birth is an option, best with a midwife. If it's legal, anyway. But if something goes wrong, you'll end up at hospital, mother and/or child may die or be disabled, and the overall price will likely be greater.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com