re: #354 Rightwingconspirator

On healthcare and the spectrum of politics and options- This administration never even looked at increased regulation of current insurers and medical providers like say public utilities. Instead they went big, and got pushed back.

When Chrysler and Lockheed got into big trouble way back when, and were regarded in other terms as too big to fail they got loans. No big taxpayer buy ins, no firing of the CEO. Just loans. Under Reagan we had a bank crisis and a savings and loan crisis. The response was both effective and unlike what we see today.

I can certainly see what you’re saying. But it seems that many of the provisions of the proposed reform do boil to down to increased industry regulation—items such as removing pre-existing conditions restrictions and limiting pricing based on age—rather than trying to fundamentally change the system. Even forcing private insurers into exchanges is more a matter of regulation than a fundamental change in the way health insurance is delivered.

I personally would be happy with a tightly regulated private health insurance industry like those in several European countries if I believed that our government, whose elections are funded by monied interests, could for a moment be trusted to tightly regulate any business. In lieu of that, I look to single-payer.

And I see what you’re saying about the simpler methods of bail-outs in the past. But I can also see how buying stock offered a better chance of return than simple loans. The S&L clean-up largely involved private firms being taken over and liquidated by the government, which I would argue is more intrusive than the TARP loans or even the the stock purchases. In any case, none of these policies are notably leftist.