Dave Smith (16:19)
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So the thing that, that jumps out at me is a few things there, right? Number one, you see that Jon Stewart and Bernie Sanders are both saying here that, well, look, the problem essentially is, or at least Jon Stewart's saying this and then Bernie Sanders is saying, yep, and that's why socialism is the answer. Well, so what they're saying is that when you have these government programs where government like subsidizes industries, it pumps a bunch of money into the industries, but you don't cap costs, then you end up just driving the price up. And so this ends up, you know, essentially not working and giving us what we have today. And he mentions a bunch of things like pharmaceutical drugs and health insurance and education and stuff like this. This is why the prices are so expensive. Now the first thing that jumps out at me here is that, well, then why have all of you guys always been supporting these policies as better than not, right? Because it was always like everybody in the socialist Bernie, Bernie Sanders world would always kind of say that Obamacare was, was good. Like Bernie Sanders would vote for Obamacare but then say he still wants Medicare for All. Like he still wants to take it a step further. But why even do the first, if the first step is you acknowledge is driving prices up. I mean, this is the whole issue, right? Like, this is what they kind of. Look, we don't really. In America, I mean, it kind of depends where you are, but we really don't have a major problem with, say, like, the quality of health care. Now, we do have a major problem with the quality of government education, but there's actually very good private education. It just costs a lot. Now, when I say we don't really have a problem with the health care, I just mean that, like, we have clean pharmaceutical drugs, we have clean equipment, we have doctors with knowledge. We have. It's not. Now, you may go to an urgent care or a hospital that's nicer or less nice than another one. But most of the times the mass problem in America with, say, health care isn't actually the health care itself. It's the prices of everything that's the major problem. The major problem in America is that if you don't have insurance, you can go bankrupt because you get hit by a car or because you get cancer. That's the major problem. And the major problem with health insurance is that the insurance is so expensive and it's not very good coverage. The major problem with getting your kids good private education is that it's very expensive. The major problem with pharmaceutical drugs is that they're expensive. Now, I'm not saying there's not other problems, but this is the major one and this is the one that they are talking about here. Okay? The major price, the major problem with college is that it's so goddamn expensive. And so. Well, once you acknowledge that kind of this government intervention is what it does lead to prices rising, then, you know, the next question might be, oh, has that created the whole problem in the first place? Because all of the industries that you're talking about are areas where the government has intervened quite a bit is like very, very involved. And even before Obamacare, the government was incredibly involved in health care in the country. Obviously we had Medicare and Medicaid for many, many years. There's been all types of different, you know, state health care plans and things like that. So there's been a lot of government intervention in health care. There was more under Obamacare. You know, there was a lot of intervention in the college. There was just more once the government started giving out the loans themselves. But. So if the problem is that the prices of all of these things are just too out of reach and that they bankrupt people, this is certainly the case with medical prices and with the price of college, then you might ask yourself like, oh, was it the intervention that caused that to begin with? Maybe if we weren't even intervening, this wouldn't even be an issue that we're discussing again when, when things are. If, if you take things like, you know, I use the example, like shoes or televisions or just, just lots of things that, that we have around us all, all the time. The government doesn't provide them, the government doesn't subsidize them and ever complain that there should be a government program to provide any of them, because they're just kind of reasonably priced, people aren't going bankrupt for them. And a lot of times I think there is this thing that, well, I, I think it's a little bit infantile, as I pointed out many times before. There's, there's something about socialism that's very infantile to feel like as an adult that you shouldn't have to pay your own way through the world now. It's easier to feel that way when, you know, if you go and I, I don't know the price. It's been a few years now since I've had. My wife's delivered a baby for me. I was gonna say since I've delivered a baby, but I guess technically I've never done that, but I've been a partner in them and. But it was like something like $30,000, I think, is what that the hospital bill came out to be. And it's about. So it's about 30 grand to have a kid. Now Insurance, you know, takes care of a lot of that. And then depending on your insurance, you owe what you owe, but it's probably, you know, the price. There's been a lot of inflation. It's probably more expensive than that these days. But. So like, just for example, right? If I think for the average person, like, just saying, I'm just pulling out numbers just to paint a picture. But like, if you were to say there's like a young couple and they're having their first kid and they're real excited and they, they said to them, like, okay, well, you're gonna be at the hospital for, you know, three days and you're gonna use all these services and it's gonna cost you like 300 bucks a night that you're here, I don't think anyone even, like left wing people who just aren't infantile would go, that's outrageous. It should be free because, like, just think about, like, nothing should be free. And this is the problem with Bernie Sanders saying things like, health care is a right, you should have the best quality. It's like, look, this is, oh, hey, how we doing?
