Isn’t it basic "competition" that gives America a high standard of living?

October 15, 2011 9:30 am

When car dealers compete for your business, we get LOWEST possible price, but higher quality cars, and even some extras like "free oil changes for 4 years"….. or 0% interest rates…. or free floor mats.When fast food restaurants compete for your business, we end up with "Dollar menus" and ever-expanding menus to cater to more tastes and desires…. bigger cups, bigger fries, better flavor.When Pizza places compete for your business, we get FASTER delivery… FREE delivery… fresher ingredients… lower prices…. coupons…. free bread sticks….. etc..When CAR INSURANCE companies compete, we get lower rates…. 24 hour claims centers…. free windshield chip repairs…. "come to you" appraisal services…..EVERYTHING in America that is affected by FREE MARKET COMPETITION gets BETTER when there is competition. So why would the Democrats RISK economic chaos, health care collapse, and RESTRICTED levels of care by NOT having free market solutions to the "health care crisis"???Competition makes everything BETTER…. but for some reason, Pelosi Obama have elected to endorse the EXACT OPPOSITE. Dare we make a prediction as to what will happen??? There are market forces you CAN;T IGNORE.

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Comments

  1. Cristopher on October 15, 2011 at 10:41 am said:

    You;re exactly right. Any meaningful reform would have moved us closer to market forces. By giving the tax exemption to employers, and creating the illusion that health care is paid for by somebody else, we removed all the incentives that normally keep prices in check and foster better service. Instead, we;ve moved very close to giving Government control over this sector of the economy. What a wasted opportunity.Edit @ Stoev, above: Yes, competition in Auto companies has hurt the big American companies, but it has been a benefit to consumers. As long as the American companies dominated the market, unions were free to impose unreasonable demands, and those costs were just passed along to consumers as higher prices and lower quality. When foreign competition became a factor, Americans naturally started buying their higher quality, lower priced products. So that only proves the point. If foreign competition hadn;t entered the market, we;d all be driving $40,000 Pintos. As far as fast food causing obesity, that;s entirely beside the point. That;s a function of individuals making choices about their diet and has no bearing on the point of the question, i.e. the competition creates excellence and controls prices. And lastly, I don;t know how your local public utilities work, but my experience with them is that prices go up, I have no choice but to pay whatever they demand, and the customer service is normally poor.

  2. Jed on October 15, 2011 at 11:09 am said:

    car companies – failingfast food – obesity is a pandemicpizza – see aboveinsurance – requirement for a car, they know you need it.you know there;s no competition for local water, gas, and electricity and those are regulated by the government? ever think about that?

  3. Terese on October 15, 2011 at 1:01 pm said:

    There will still be health insurance providers, but now much like car insurance, everybody is required to have it. So there will still be competition between insurance providers. Big business is alive and well in America.

  4. Gabriele on October 15, 2011 at 1:47 pm said:

    Government collusion is what leads to these "too big to fail zombie firms". A free market would have crashed those things years ago before they became too big to fail.

  5. Chiquita on October 15, 2011 at 3:14 pm said:

    You do realize this isn;t socialized health care, right? Private insurance will still be here.

  6. Stephen on October 15, 2011 at 3:39 pm said:

    Lower price often results from free market competition especially when it is easy to move some of the costs out of the price equation. For example low price meat on the pizza is subsidized by not only government policy but places willing to accept the smelly awful mega meat processing plants, workers who are willing to accept lower wages and dangerous work. The market works great in text book theory but it is rarely text book–i.e. not perfect competition, not perfect information, not every participant a price taker, no externalities, etc. The substance of your question on health care contains premises that are likely not true. You are assuming the health care reform law ends market competition. That is simply not true. Read the law or an unbiased analysis of it and you will see that it does not restrict choice or competition. There is not a restriction on levels of care. I think you will agree that the health care reform law will actually increase competition from what we had before.

  7. Ben on October 15, 2011 at 4:00 pm said:

    No, cooperative constructive action is what produces a high standard of living. ;Competition; is irrelevant and only degenerates that standard with unnecessary and artificially produced punitive deprivation. In the context of prevaling economic practices, yes, ;competition; produces more favorable results than collusion but that proves nothing about ;competition; objectively or universally. Anything that improves the conditions of humankind is always well worth any economic "risk" because humanity and the conditions thereof are concrete realities while economics is abstract esoteric minutia with no basis in material reality. The essential thrust of your content is that you believe the abstract imaginary principles of economics is a higher priority than the measurable conditions of humanity. I think you should ask yourself if that is really what you believe.