I dunno. The Hannafords in Bridgton or North Conway are are pretty fine, or if you want worker-owned, you've got Food City in Bridgton. Can't imagine that it's better to consolidate so much economic activity 60 miles south of you, but maybe.

I agree they're better than other big boxes, but why is it good for the state of Maine to have people driving from Fryeburg to Scarborough to do their shopping?

Meh. My wife's a doctor. I don't see it. There are better and worse, but not in a way that matters for 95% of health care needs.

No one's saying you can choose your GP or select for specialists; they're just not going to compete on price.

I just think that "known hack" is a mythical person, or at least so rare that they're not worth creating policy around.

Their services only cost that much because of the need for profit-making and the absurd accounting of payment processing. Get rid of that and all of a sudden we're paying them the right amount.

Goodbye, huge billing back office!

I think only 3 is based in reality. It's the only one that matters!

When we are sick, we want someone to solve the problem. We don't want to have a discussion about which someone to go see! I hit my head on a mailbox! I needed stitches! The person who was closest was going to get my business!

This, in particular, seems insane to me. Like, completely detached from reality.

I just don't believe anyone is ever going to shop for healthcare based on cost. Nor should they be asked to.

I personally think our biggest issues, governmentally and administratively, stem from organizations being whipsawed back and forth between ideologies and not being allowed to set a direction and follow the course the evidence suggests.

"Market fluctuations" is the sort of term I find meaningless. Just business-consultant-speak for "the world is unpredictable, but my model will predict it."

We make the federal government we want; what we have now is nothing like optimal or ideal, so hard to draw conclusions from.

Well, the difference is that without a mandate for margin, things get cheaper, and with infinite buying power, things can be purchased at scale that create efficiencies, etc.

"The government sucks at everything" is a lie created by the wealthy to hoard more wealth.

We have to pay that money to someone! Why is it better to pay that money to profit-making corporations than the federal government.

If someone said, "you can have the exact same coverage you have now, but you send your money to X instead of Y," what's the difference?

Nice summary of the 2022 report here, if people are interested: www.cbo.gov/system/files...

Biggest predicted drawback is potential for more demand for health care services than supply, but I really quibble with the idea that people don't get health care because they don't have insurance.

I dunno. This is from the CBO report. Doesn't seem so terrible.

For me it's just variations on this, over and over again. Weird AI blondes encouraging me to become a fascist asshole.