Repubs, if the US Postal Service can exist in a competitive market, why can't a national health care system?

The US Postal system has competition, UPS and Fed-EX are doing just fine? Why can't health care throw their hat into the ring of Capitalism?



Will the government program not cause the insurance companies to lower their outrages rates in order to compete, thus lowering the costs across the board?Repubs, if the US Postal Service can exist in a competitive market, why can't a national health care system?
Just a comment: The USPS provides delivery services THAT ARE NOT AVAILABLE from Fed-Ex, UPS, or DHL, or any other service. If it weren't for the USPS, some people would go out of business post-haste! If people want to denigrate national health care, they should stop comparing it to the post office, DMV, fire dept and police. They are just negating their own arguments by doing that.
you know... it's funny that you should mention the USPS



The U.S. Postal Service is on track for a record $7 billion deficit this year. That’s more than double last year’s loss.



Postmaster General John Potter bumped up his previous projection by a billion bucks yesterday, citing the growing expenses of six-day delivery and employee retirement/health care plans. Potter and his team are scrambling to cut costs left and right – from a yearlong hiring freeze to early retirement offers to branch closures. But will it even matter?



The Government Accountability Office recently labeled the USPS a “high risk” federal program, and while I'm hard-pressed to think of any risk-free government program, I'm inclined to agree.



The Postal Service is facing a perfect storm of business risk: The business is already loaded up with debt. Minimum wage and benefit costs are rising while revenues are plummeting. For example, they are expected to handle at least 27 million fewer pieces of mail this year than in 2008. Is there any business in America that isn’t looking to cut shipping costs? (There’s this new technology we’ve heard about called “e-mail.”)



Then there’s UPS and FedEx, two worthy private-sector rivals. And what about Peak Oil? A summer of 2008 redux could cripple the whole industry.



Snail mail might not be dead, but I suspect the USPS is going the way of Amtrak, at best.



Is this the sort of government run efficiency that we want our health care system to emulate?



Don't get me wrong, I'm not blind to the nature of Obama's health care, nor do scary words like socialism cause me to pass judgements. I realize that Obama is NOT pushing for universal health care, just re-imagined regulations. I'm adopting a wait and see attitude, but there's a reason why Obama is not pursuing universal health care.Repubs, if the US Postal Service can exist in a competitive market, why can't a national health care system?
The USPS is in crisis %26amp; wants to cut hours %26amp; deliveries....
You see, you actually make a good point, but when you look at track records, private companies are faster and more reliant.



EXAMPLE: After Katrina hit, it took the Postal Office 9 weeks to return service to New Orleans!

It took Fed Ex only 2 weeks and UPS only 2 and a half!





Secondly, Postal Office NEVER has to worry about being shut down, like a private company would...Repubs, if the US Postal Service can exist in a competitive market, why can't a national health care system?
forgive me for correcting you again but its outrageous.



anyway.



canada has a national healthcare system and its terrible.
Things don't look too good for the USPS, they're looking at layoffs, and the elimination of Saturday mail delivery. They're going through tough times like everyone else, including the private carriers.
You have an excellent point.



Fedex is a totally Free Enterprise and works and spins like a toy top.



UPS is a Union run, Teamster Run organization and gets the job done day-in-day out.



The USPS has become a very lean and reliable low-cost shipper being the preference of the biggest entrepreneur operation in the world called E-bay!.



Yes, we can! America.



Do not let the nay sayers grind you down.



Government will work for you if you let it.
I dare you to work for the government, then tell me with a straight face that they don't waste money. I've heard this one more than once:



"It is the end of the fiscal year. In order to keep our budget from being cut, we need to find something to spend money on. Let's get a new flat screen TV for the breakroom"



The point you are missing, is that the USPS cannot compete without federal funding. This is because like all government agencies, it is inefficient and wasteful. It could never be self-sufficient for this reason, unlike Fed-Ex and UPS.
"Repubs, if the US Postal Service can exist in a competitive market, why can't a national health care system?"



Because of the money involved. It is incentive for pharmaceuticals to solidify their monopoly stranglehold on the FDA. The same stranglehold that forces water fluoridization, and the suppression of natural, cheap remedies.



We don't need government sanctioned drug pushers, that we must pay for through fiat currency shenanigans.



How many times have you read "The FDA has not evaluated these statements, this substance is not meant to cure diseases." ?????



Why in the hell don't they evaluate natural remedies??
LOL. How naive. The USPS is on the brink of being dissolved. My mother and father both retired from the USPS. As a USPS kid, I know that they have been loosing ground since the early 80s and reducing the amount of post offices they have. I also know that recently the USPS had to shut down weekend services to most area. You may not know that the only reason the USPS has lasted so long, is that for the first century or so, it was a monopoly. You may have not know that the Federal Employees and the USPS employees are even rated in two different scales precisely because it is becoming a money drain since the 80s.



The reason for the "outrageous rates" is in fact because of the medical services rates being high. The reason for the medical services rates being high is because of the damn justice system we have that makes it easy to sue anyone at any point for any reason for an "outrageous" amount. That creates the chain reaction all the way to the insurance companies.



The I come from a place that for a long time the majority of the hospitals were ran by the the government. I know what that is. When we could afford a private hospital, we went to it. I know that the same will happen with "universal life insurance". Besides who do you think is going to pay it? Do you know that the average family pays twice percentage of tax in Canada than in USA? Are you willing to dish out 10% more of your salary than you are dishing out, if not more? Well, if the government gives me a tax credit for the insurance I am paying right now, I will gladly pay that 10%.
the gov owns to post office, amtrack, car company, banking,maybe health care, whats next?
Not only is your point poorly served by the example you provide but national health care and the postal service are the proverbial 'apples and oranges'. While I agree with the vast majority of your posters that our postal system is in financial disarray, I'm far more concerned about government handling of the decisions and care options that pertain to my health and well being. It's not a life and death issue for me if the USPS looses my birthday president to Aunt Susie, but if I loose my life over a government enforced health care issue. . . well I'll be kind of grumpy.
It can. But the right wing press like to ignore facts. I am always amazed how many Americans seem not to be aware about the issues with healthcare relying on FOX and other sources to spread misinformation about the healthcare system of the USA and those abroad.



First of all, Obama wants to make insurance more available to all and change the system so that it is cheaper [1]. He also wants change so that the insurance companies find it harder to get out of paying for treatment. The system he is proposing looks similar to that which works in Holland and Switzerland where private companies are involved in providing insurance [2].



Second, of course universal health-cover sucks. That is why we in Western Europe have it. We think, hmm, our healthcare system sucks. I know, lets keep it. I guess that is the same with Japan and Canada as well.



Third, Obama campaigned on reforming the healthcare system. He said he wanted to make insurance more available and he was elected by the American people to do this [3].



FACT - the US has higher death rates for kids both for kids aged under one and those under five than western European countries with universal health coverage [4,5].

FACT – American insurance companies push up prices and work to stop paying out claims on those they cover [6].

FACT - the USA spends more on healthcare PER PERSON than any other nation on the planet [7].

That means that a dead American four year old would have had a better chance of life if they were born in Canada, France, Cuba, Germany, Japan etc, all of which have universal health coverage.



Last of all if you do not like the policies that Obama was elected to bring in, he can always be voted out of office in 2012.
Also the Postal Service is mandated to cover every square inch of the country. UPS and FED-X only cherry pick the lucrative markets in big cities. All the naysayers don't look at that. Every little Podunk town and village in the USA has a Post Office.
Nominally private enterprises could exist in health care as they do in other industries in which the government operates. However, some of their activities must go from pure market competition to seeking political influence.



I admit that I am not familiar with the regulations on mail delivery. However, knowing the heavy requirements on entrepreneurs in other fields, I can only imagine that the burden on mail delivery (especially those firms crossing state lines) must be immense. I imagine that they spend some time lobbying what kinds of activities the UPS may undertake and at what price. Meanwhile, heavier regulations may favor the larger more politically connected companies. True, UPS and Fed-Ex are doing just fine. Are you certain that their success is due exclusively to their quality of service?



Now, as I stated before, I am not closely familiar with the mail delivery industry. I am sure that much of their success *is* due true market competition. But at the same time, you see the USPS dominating in some areas (due to tax subsidy) while effectively not being in other areas. Do you think that UPS and Fed-Ex have had no say on this? Do you think that, on balance, the USPS has had equal impacts on all companies?



The analysis is similar for health care companies. Of course, we should not make the silly mistake of assuming that those firms operate under true competitive market forces. They are already under intense regulatory supervision. All of the risks of uneven impact and political lobbying exist today. Indeed, they even have government competition currently in the form of Medicare and Medicaid.



Adding more competition could be bad for some firms. But those firms with political connections will be able to navigate the changes and probably come out ahead. The problem is not really whether there is government competition. It is the degree of political management of the industry. Firms subject to political management need not necessarily improve their product or reduce price to earn profits if they can attain favorable regulation or even outright subsidy (as we have seen recently in banking and auto companies). For this reason, we should not expect costs to lower across the board as you assert.



If anything, actual costs will go up. Be careful though. These costs could be masked if they go through general government expenditures. I fear that is the problem with many of the foreign social health care plans. The finances of those governments are in even worse shape than is the U.S. (we being more likely to build bombs than provide health care). Unfortunately, the spending in every major nation is unsustainable. Like you assert, nominally private companies can thrive alongside government competition. But we can’t afford their luxuries.
Such long answers to never point out the obvious.



The USPS and FedEx/UPS offer differing services, and it's well known that if something is important and time is of the essence, you go to one of the private companies, and leave the USPS for grandma's Christmas cards. Never have I put something into a mailbox that was needed immediately.



People like to make these comparisons and seemingly never take into account the fact that we're talking about lives here and not mail. I'd trust my life to a private company before I did the government.
- The US Postal Service has a protected monopoly as a matter of law and they're STILL bleeding money.

- HB 2 (Obamacare) requires ALL alternatives to phase-out of existence.

- The US Postal system has NO competition for common letters and cards. It's ILLEGAL to send them ANY other way.

- UPS and Fed-EX are doing just fine because they're manifestly BETTER at the OTHER things the USPS also does.

- "Health care" cannot "throw their hat into the ring of Capitalism" because Democrats forbid it as a matter of law. Insurers and providers must ring each and every decision through a labyrinth of bureaucratic flowcharts to simply learn what they're ALLOWED to do before deciding specifically WHAT to do (in the few instances where they actually have a choice at all.)

- The government program will FORCE the insurance companies to cease to exist.

- HB 2 manifestly IS a "Government takeover" from which there is no escape. After the initial period where private alternatives aren't all eliminated yet, you WILL be government property, in a LITERAL bodily sense.
I guess you got what you asked for,so I wont push it any further.I'll bet you still don't get it yet though.
In response to Justin I work for the government and my agency is apparently far better managed than his. What he doesn't mention is that if he was all that disturbed by the big screen TV in the break room he could always pick up a phone and call the GAO or his inspector General. He could be more proactive and suggest to his supervisor more efficient ways the agency can spend the money it is budgeted. They actually give awards for that.



I would like to point out that large corporations squander money with more frequency than the government. General Motors, Chrysler, Circuit City, Enron, Eastern Airlines, and Pan Am were all free market giants either totally wiped out or badly damaged as the result of mismanagement.



Now the Postal Service is having major difficulty because it has to adjust to a changing world just like the newspapers, another private enterprise not doing well. To be fair, you all could rant in letters mailed to the editor of your local newspaper but you vent here. Businesses now fax and email. There is simply far less volume of mail and that volume shrinks a little bit every year. Therefore the Postal Service can't avoid financial problems unless it can restructure itself.



Now many here have mentioned private courier services such as FedEx and UPS. Well they're not doing all that well either. DHL had to scale back dramatically, just as the USPS is scaling back and it nearly wiped out a county in Ohio economically. FedEx and UPS have the luxury of withdrawing from areas that are not profitable and concentrate their efforts in areas that are profitable such as the major cities over desolate rural areas. I know this because my town have very limited FedEx service so I either use USPS or UPS The USPS does not have that luxury. The USPS cannot cease servicing a particular town or county although it might eliminate facilities in that town or county to save money. There will always be a postal worker to move the mail although he may have to drive further out to work his route. The same can't be said of the DHL, UPS, or FedEx guy.