@Nittany Discord  
Sometimes the system has to be done away with. Particularly if it refuses to let people “tweak” it altogether. I don’t think we’d get very far if we kept trying to “tweak” feudalism.

@Draco_2k  
Guess we have to keep tweaking the system until they work best, though they may get more complex than we can handle. This goes for economic regulation and healthcare.

@Darth Sonic  

 
I’d say the biggest issue is that things that sound good in theory turn out very differently in practice. The reason Capitalism or Communism don’t live up to their respective utopias is, quite simply, because they are nothing more than ideas. Applied to the real world, they always turn into something other than what you’d like to have on paper.
 
Same goes for any proposed plan of healthcare management. Doesn’t matter if it sounds good on paper if it doesn’t work in the real world.

@Draco_2k  
One could argue that by virtue of eliminating competition, these systems cease to be Capitalistic. But then you’d rightly call that out as being a No True Scottsman fallacy.
 
Perhaps a should be more specific. A Liberal Democracy with free market systems (note that I am not disqualifying things like Nationalized Healthcare here), for all its imperfections, has been the only system that actually works. I know you just got done calling this fallacious, but in this case it’s just true: it’s not perfect, but it’s the best we’ve got.
 
Now, I want to express that I am not against nationalized (I hesitate to say socialized, due to how Bernie got raked over the coals by Denmark for that) systems. But I want to stress again that using Europe as an example of what should be done in the States is not the best idea, because European nations are about the size of American states.

@Darth Sonic  

 
The problem with the “It’s not perfect, but it’s the best we’ve got” argument is that it’s used in defense of every country, regime, political and financial system. A fallacy, in other words.
 
Like Nittany said, Capitalism paves the road to tyranny all the same. Give too much power to the government, and you’ve got your dictatorship. Give too much power to business, and you’ve got monopolies and cartels enacting the same. Lose/Lose.

@Darth Sonic  
It’s fine.
 
Thing is, unregulated capitalism also leads to tyranny as all the wealth ends up the hands of a few citizens who hoard it or use it to buy power, leading to hardship, poverty, and economic slavery for everyone else. What’s best is a hybrid system that takes the best parts of all the other systems and has rules in place to prevent exploitation. We can allow for a market and allow there to be an upper and lower class, but never allow a massive wealth gap to exist or for poor people to end up unable to escape poverty.
 
It might be too late for the US to escape an inevitable collapse due to corrupt capitalism, but maybe other countries will be smart enough to prevent it while allowing for people a means to earn wealth and advance.

@Darth Sonic  
No you do you just also have one for being agitated easily as well.
 
I admit I have a bit of a reputation for being argumentative but still…

@Pagan  
I do?
 
I’m surprised I have a reputation at all beyond that guy who drops Luffy gifs when people necropost.
 
So I guess I don’t have a reputation for being apologetic? Because I apologise a lot.

@Nittany Discord  
Except I didn’t actually call you an idiot, because you said you meant the former.
 
Still, even suggesting the possibility was too much. It’s also a bit hypocritical of me to do so considering I just got angry at someone for calling me a dork for bringing up the cartoons in a discussion about the Star Wars fiction. I apologize. It’s just that I can’t stand people who think doing away with Capitalism is a good idea. It isn’t, it just objectively isn’t. Every other system we have created inevitably lead to tyranny.

@Nittany Discord  
Your better off just not responding to him trust me he has a reputation here for being confrontational.

@Darth Sonic  
1). Calling me an idiot is uncalled for and against the rules. Please don’t do that again. You can construct an argument without resorting to insults.
 
2). I mean the former. I’m not against the idea of a market or currency, and I think there are a lot of positive that come with it, but there are some things that should never be privatized. When I talk about capitalists, I talk about people that think that capitalism is the fix-all to every problem of society, even in the face of overwhelming evidence against their belief.

@Darth Sonic  
Please try to make your points without calling others names.

@Nittany Discord  
>Capitalist
 
I am now highly nervous about where this conversation is going.
 
Explain to me was you mean when you say “Capatilist”. Are you talking solely about the sorts that believe the Free Market is a magical Demi-God that can solve all the problems, or are you talking Capitalism in general?
 
If the latter, you’re an idiot. There is no viable alternative, at least at the moment.

@The Smiling Pony  
So it makes sense to capitalists?
 
@Ebalosus  
Maybe. It’s still shit, though, and it’s not something many Americans like, but they can’t do anything about it because they don’t have millions of dollars to throw at lobbyists and campaign fundraisers. It goes back to the number one problem in my country: greed.

@Ebalosus  
It makes sense in an american sort of way.
 
ie. it doesn’t really, unless you think being the middle of an Eifel Tower with a Kafkaesque bureaucrat and Ayn Rand is a good time.

@The Smiling Pony
 
No, no it doesn’t. I can actually speak from experience here, as when I had my last car accident, I didn’t need to get my insurance company involved, due to the fact that at least in New Zealand, because it was the other person’s fault (a Polish tourist IIRC), they had to pay for the repairs to my car. Car insurance here will only pay out for no-fault accidents, or for act-of-god type damage (car gets damaged by a building collapse for e.g.).
 
But hey, if Americans think that the well-being of their cars is more pertinent than their own well-being, then more power to them.
 
@Nittany Discord
 
IIRC, the shitshow that is health insurance in the states is mainly due to how health insurance is regulated. Here, health insurance is regulated the same way that every other insurance is regulated: as financial services. Hence why they’ll all mention their great credit and accounting rating, as well as their financial credibility. In America, to my knowledge, health insurance is regulated both as a financial service, and as a health service; which to me is bizarre. All the insurance company needs to be concerned with is how to pay for services when a client needs treatment, not decide on the treatments themselves. It probably explains why I can get a premium health insurance package that covers everything (private treatment, preventative treatment, doctors visits, full dental, overseas treatments, pre-existing conditions, etc) for a whopping US$30 a week…which is ironically the same amount it costs for car insurance if you live in Auckland LOL.

@Ebalosus  
It is compulsory (thanks, Obama), but it’s still not free. Not having health insurance means a tax penalty. It’s a stupid idea that’s the worst of private and public health insurance.

@Ebalosus  
Car insurance ensures that if you damage someone else’s property, they’re covered.
 
Health insurance only ensures your own (or your family’s) health coverage.
 
It makes sense, in an american sort of way.

@Ebalosus  
That’s pretty telling of the state of things when you think about it.

Speaking of Healthcare: why is car insurance compulsory in a lot of places in America, but health insurance isn’t? Shouldn’t it be the other way round?

@Pagan  
If you’re talking about Europe, I’m going to point out that there is a completely legitimate issue of scale. That is, Texas is about half the size of Europe.
 
I’m not saying America doesn’t need a major rehual, but the European systems likely won’t work in a nation so much larger, populated, and disconnected. The failure of Obamacare demonstrates this.

@Nittany Discord  
You’d think there would be no harm in demonizing an evidently awful ideology, and yet here we are.
 
As usual, it’s the fallacy of thinking that if one side is in the wrong, then the other one must be in right.
 
It’s even how the elections work nowadays. People voting for candidate A because they can’t let candidate B win; people voting for candidate B because they just can’t stand candidate A. Even though both deserve to be taken out and put in the garbage.

@Draco_2k  
Socialism is a curse word in America, so that’s part of the reason we can’t get universal healthcare. Everyone is defending private healthcare and insurance though it creates so many problems for the poor.

@Nittany Discord  
From what I know, yeah. The situation around the world varies, but it’s often similar enough even when there’s good and proper free healthcare.
 

 
Funny thing; health isn’t some luxury you can afford to go without, so the businesses can charge you until you’re literally blue in the face. But if you don’t like that, you’re just a goddamn commie.
 
@Pagan  
You’d think “not dying” would be a serious enough issue to effect a change in politics through the democratic process.
 
Something’s rotten.

@Nittany Discord  
there are cases where they let people die, I remember seeing a documentary where a man had an issue with his liver that if treated early wouldn’t kill him but the operation cost around $20,000 and his insurance refused to pay for it so he was unable to get the treatment at all and he died, then you have the cases where they do initially “save you” and get you stable again but won’t actually solve the underlying issue that’s killing you unless your insurance says they will pay for it.
 
@Draco_2k  
It’s astonishing how messed up the healthcare system is when we have better more efficient examples just across the pond that we refuse to use, you also almost never hear anyone bring it up in the elections either the only time I ever heard it mentioned was by Bernie he even tried to push for a reform like socialist healthcare back in the senate I watched his speech for it, yet no one else ever even mentions it I may not agree with everything Bernie proposes but healthcare was the biggest one and he had it right, now it will probably be another 8 or so years before the issue of a new healthcare system that actually works will be mentioned again.