# 1 good thing about Hillary, she hates capitalism. **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 2, 2016, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772 "2016-09-02T13:27:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772/21 "2016-09-02T15:41:17Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > The problem you discuss is not capitalism, it’s the lack of it. The government regulates away competition. A common mistake. A free market and capitalism are two separate things. Investing in a patented drug is definitely capitalism; you’re investing your capital and making a profit. But a large portion of that profit is coming from the lack of a free market. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772/22 "2016-09-02T15:51:24Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > You would be better served by voting for someone who would lengthen the protection time afforded by medical patents. _That_ is what causes the high cost of new drugs. I disagree. Products like medicine don’t respond to free market forces. It’s not like buying a DVD where you can decide the price is too high for the value you receive. If you or a member of your family is sick, you’re going to pay for the cure. The only limit on what the drug company can charge you is how much money you have. If we extended the patent period, it would just allow companies to charge a maximum price for a longer time. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772/23 "2016-09-02T16:32:22Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > But this is the opposite of what you said. Why can Mylan charge whatever it wants for the EPi-Pen? No competition and inelastic demand. Without competition businesses will charge whatever they want, the supply is artificially limited. If the government prevents competition they have to find another means to regulate the price. That remedies can go in all sorts of different directions, but in this case the government has in effect created a private monopoly and has given no regard to the public good, which is the basis they claim for the regulations that created the monopoly in the first place. And let’s not point at parties for a matter like that, one side shouts “Regulations are bad”, the other side says “Regulations are good”, neither side hesitates to create anti-competitive regulations, cuz that’s what feathers their pockets. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772/24 "2016-09-02T16:41:55Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > “Poor people are being denied appropriate insurance because [del]the insurance companies are pulling out of the exchanges in low income counties.[/del] GOP-controlled states wouldn’t take free Medicaid money if it meant helping the poors, after CJ John Roberts allowed them to refuse it.” > > Fixed that for you. True enough. Alaska’s governor at the time decided to take a stupid pill and turned down Medicaid money which would have helped indigenous folks and the poor, and taken some financial burden off of the state. He did it not out of some altruistic notion, nor because it made sense, but because of the vicious anti-Obama nonsense on the right. As a result, not only have health services declined there, but four of the five health insurance companies have abandoned individual health care in Alaska, including Aetna, Assurant, State Farm and, most recently, Moda. That leaves one company (Blue Cross) to offer insurance, and they can, of course, charge whatever they want. It was a spectacularly selfish and politically-motivated move that is counter to the purpose of government. The Alaska where I was born and raised has all but completely disappeared. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772/25 "2016-09-02T16:43:34Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > A common mistake. A free market and capitalism are two separate things. Investing in a patented drug is definitely capitalism; you’re investing your capital and making a profit. But a large portion of that profit is coming from the lack of a free market. Well, I agree with you, mostly. The term is ‘free enterprise’, ‘free market’ came into style to sound like free enterprise but mainly means keep the government from ensuring that there is competition. I used ‘capitalism’ because I thought that’s what the OP was talking about. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772/26 "2016-09-02T16:54:18Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > How many do you want? > [One from an insurance company.](http://www.aetna.com/health-reform-connection/aetnas-vision/facts-about-costs.html) > [One from a government agency.](http://www.chcf.org/publications/2016/05/health-care-costs-101) > [One from a new agency.](http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/24/health-care-costs-for-families-top-25000--triple-2001.html) Your first cite is pre-Obamacare. The rise in health costs during the decade ending in 2010 doesn’t tell us much about whether Obamacare is controlling health costs. Your second cite says, right in the header, “the rise seen in 2016 marks the lowest annual increase since at least 2001.” That would certainly support the notion that Obamacare is controlling health costs. (Nobody ever claimed that Obamacare would reduce total health care spending, but it did include a number of features that its designers hoped would reduce the rate of increase to affordable levels.) Your third cite looks at the increase in health care spending between 2013 and 2014, which of course was the first year that Obamacare was fully in effect, and was accompanied by a huge increase in the number of covered persons nationally. It would have taken a freakin’ _miracle_ for the increase in national health care spending that year to be below trend, given that millions of previously uninsured people were finally getting care that many of them had been putting off for years. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772/27 "2016-09-02T17:36:10Z")
Insurance companies want to make money. Lots of money. There is a great deal of money in health care and insurance, and the makers of that money want to continue to make lots of it. They invest some of that money in Senators and Representatives. Unfortunately, the medical, drug and insurance interests don’t have helping people as their first priority, but making money is their first priority. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772/28 "2016-09-02T17:44:04Z")
Death panels have been around for _years._ ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772/29 "2016-09-02T18:02:38Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > The first death panels have been set up. > [@Gatopescado](#): > > Death panels have been around for _years._ IIRC, one of my wife’s relatives (a psychologist) worked for an insurance company. Her job was to find ways to deny coverage. I’ve heard doctors (e.g., in reports on NPR a few years ago) say the same thing. There _are_ death panels. But they’re not the government. They’re business. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772/30 "2016-09-02T18:46:31Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > IIRC, one of my wife’s relatives (a psychologist) worked for an insurance company. Her job was to find ways to deny coverage. I’ve heard doctors (e.g., in reports on NPR a few years ago) say the same thing. I have joked that some fellow makes a living try to figure out how the insurance company can drop me and quit paying for my symponi. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772/31 "2016-09-02T18:50:19Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Your first cite is pre-Obamacare. The rise in health costs during the decade ending in 2010 doesn’t tell us much about whether Obamacare is controlling health costs. > > Your second cite says, right in the header, “the rise seen in 2016 marks the lowest annual increase since at least 2001.” That would certainly support the notion that Obamacare is controlling health costs. > > (Nobody ever claimed that Obamacare would reduce total health care spending, but it did include a number of features that its designers hoped would reduce the rate of increase to affordable levels.) > > Your third cite looks at the increase in health care spending between 2013 and 2014, which of course was the first year that Obamacare was fully in effect, and was accompanied by a huge increase in the number of covered persons nationally. It would have taken a freakin’ _miracle_ for the increase in national health care spending that year to be below trend, given that millions of previously uninsured people were finally getting care that many of them had been putting off for years. It’s funny- as soon as I read **Saint Cad** ’s post, I \*knew \*that the links he gave would actually indicate that the ACA has made things better. I wonder; was he just hoping we wouldn’t read them, or that we wouldn’t be able to look up how fast expenditures were going up before the ACA? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772/32 "2016-09-02T19:09:11Z")
Obamacare certainly hasn’t caused prices to increase. It has, in fact, done absolutely nothing, owing to the fact that it never got passed. Instead, we have to settle for the ACA, which while considerably better than nothing, is probably still worse than Obamacare would have been. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772/33 "2016-09-02T19:11:18Z")
Now that is really unfair. I was asked to provide cites that health care costs are rising. I did. Now the argument is yeah but not as much as before. So you’re saying I’m wrong that they’re still rising i.e. higher than last year? ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772/34 "2016-09-02T19:36:10Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Now that is really unfair. I was asked to provide cites that health care costs are rising. I did. Now the argument is yeah but not as much as before. So you’re saying I’m wrong that they’re still rising i.e. higher than last year? TECHNICALLY, you were right. But health care costs always go up. They’re always going to go up. Prices for anything don’t go down, aside from recession/depression and very rare exceptions, generally based on a massive efficiency increase in material use, labor efficiency, or cost/corner cutting. Inflation alone all but guarantees it. Your original question is shit, or at best, dishonest, as it implies a goal that’s all but impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772/35 "2016-09-02T19:46:06Z")
> [@Chisquirrel](#): > > TECHNICALLY, you were right. But health care costs always go up. Conservative voters don’t get that, though. They’re told that liberals say costs will come down, and that ‘costs will come down’ means that their premiums will be reduced. And then when prices rise more slowly than they were rising before, the conservative leaders say ‘See? See? Prices rose!’ That costs rose more slowly is ignored or obfuscated. ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772/36 "2016-09-02T19:56:54Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Conservative voters don’t get that, though. They’re told that liberals say costs will come down, and that ‘costs will come down’ means that their premiums will be reduced. And then when prices rise more slowly than they were rising before, the conservative leaders say ‘See? See? Prices rose!’ That costs rose more slowly is ignored or obfuscated. I’ve been stuck with the old adage, “You can lead a horse to water…” more and more lately. If McConnell et al. thought they could get away with it, they’d try to complain about the Supreme Court being short a Justice, and certain groups would eat that shit up like manna from heaven. ---
**Author:** ![DonLogan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@DonLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DonLogan)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772/37 "2016-09-02T19:59:24Z")
It’s pretty weird to complain about higher prices if you like capitalism. Don’t you want people to make more money? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772/38 "2016-09-02T21:13:43Z")
> [@Chisquirrel](#): > > Your original question is shit, or at best, dishonest, as it implies a goal that’s all but impossible. I disagree. If health care costs were linked to providers actual cost then yes you may be right. But the charges are nowhere remotely linked to costs. Mrs Cad was had to take a sleep monitor test. It cost over $3000 for a monitor that sold for less than $1000 and for a technician to watch her for 8 hours. So average that sleep monitor out over the number of uses and assume the tech got $15/hr. That test should have ran $150 max. So with $50 aspirin, costs for doctors’ time at hundreds per hour, lab costs etc. you really think we cannot reduce health care costs? Really? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772/39 "2016-09-02T21:16:36Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Conservative voters don’t get that, though. They’re told that liberals say costs will come down, and that ‘costs will come down’ means that their premiums will be reduced. And then when prices rise more slowly than they were rising before, the conservative leaders say ‘See? See? Prices rose!’ That costs rose more slowly is ignored or obfuscated. So lower prices means rising at a lower rate? So if gas goes from $2 to $2.50 this week and then next week goes from $2.50 to only $2.75 the claim is that gas prices went down? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2016, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772/40 "2016-09-02T21:27:32Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > So lower prices means rising at a lower rate? So if gas goes from $2 to $2.50 this week and then next week goes from $2.50 to only $2.75 the claim is that gas prices went down? Perhaps “Costs will increase more slowly”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1-good-thing-about-hillary-she-hates-capitalism/764772.md?page=3)