Great video, detailing quickly a VERY complex problem. It’s interesting that the US is supposed to be Land of the Free Markets, but what ends up most often than not is the people get screwed.
I’d say this also applies to telecoms too (something I know better, if you excuse the diversion, it does relate). The lack of regulation (ooh many Yanks HATE the R word) means people only have a few choices, from big companies like the Big Pharma and medical companies setting the price as a cartel, or inelastic demand as said in the video.
Sometimes you have to actually regulate the market to make it free and fair – and indeed better for business. This is what the likes of OffCom, government, EU, DTI and others did in the UK when a few suppliers like Vodafone ruled the market – the transferability of numbers, SIM cards, fair prices for roaming etc. all had to be ruled on and forced into place – but have lead to all manner of new secondary businesses and opportunities.
Big stagnant corporations are bad for people AND business. So in the Healthcare and Telecoms fields in the US I think need such ‘interference’ to make it a fair playing field…not sure why right-wingers were so horrified at Obama’s new and rather meagre reforms, because it would actually be better in the end for them too – lower taxes or premiums, better service, better healthcare for most means less social problems, everyone wins.
But of course, those right-wing politicians are in the pocket of the status quo – big Pharma, the big Telecoms corporates, big oil and tobacco, etc. They don’t want to regulate as it hurts their kickbacks, it hurts the bottom lines of their rich funders who want to keep screwing the people for all they can get. And then those people criticise other countries like Venezuela or in South America especially as being ‘corrupt’. Very odd.
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