THere are monopolies called natural monopolies. Where the fixed cost is huge. These natural monopolies are regulated by local governments.
Examples include ... cable companies, power utilities, phone companies. That is why there is only generally only one company to get cable internet from.
The decision has been made, in some parts of the economy, monopolies are preferred to competition. Could you imagine two companies competing to provide cable service?
Is healthcare a natural monopoly?
Me personally, I do not like these regulated monopolies ... but we do have parts of the economy where we prefer these monopolies to private competition.
Who is we? I believe in complete unadulterated competition. What would be bad about having multiple companies providing you with cable service? Would the sky fall? What would be the negative outcomes?
There is a large fixed cost to get in the cable business. Five cable companies would have to provide their own cable line into your residence. For power companies, each power company would need to have its own power line system. COuld you imagine five sets of power lines connected to your house? Or what about competitive sewage?
I am just saying here, the decision has been made somewhere along the line that natural monopolies should not be subject to competition and need to be regulated. I live in Florida. I have one land line phone company to chose from, one power company to get my power, and one cable company for TV. The idea is that the large fixed cost to entry makes it almost impossible for new companies to compete. The barriers to entry are to high for private competition.
"The idea" limits someones ability to do it better than everyone else. I too live in Florida(and with the exception for phone I do not have any other options as you stated) and I think that it is a tragedy that an elected official or otherwise can dictate how many companies can operate in any sector of the economy. You mention sewage and I do feel there are certain things that are better handled by local Govt's however in my opinion that should be VERY LIMITED. As far as monopolies are concerned they should be completely unavailable, there is no such thing as a natural monopoly. Someone, somewhere that pretends to know better for the population as a whole, has created such a term.
As with your above statement, why should anyone be able to determine that the fixed costs to start a business is too high and as a result create a "natural monopoly"? If I have the money, the means, intelligence and determination to create the best insurance company in the U.S nothing should stop me but myself! What you're saying is that there is some official somewhere that is trying to protect me from creating a company because the fixed costs maybe too high for me to do it. That's my problem not any public officials!
While there are many monopolies across the country it does not mean that they should exist. Some people may think that politicians know better but I am not one. Being a business owner and the former Vice President of another company I can tell you that the majority of these people are clueless. The overwhelming majority are career bureaucrats that have never run any successful organization. There is no way they should be making social policies, economic or anything else that infringes on the rights of the people(IMO of course).
Just look at how some states are leasing out roads to private companies, something similar could be done with power lines, cable lines, etc, to anyone that wanted to get "in the biz". Obviously there is planning that needs to take place but that is something that business owners NEED to be involved in(not dumb politicians). Link Here People can continue to live in a bubble and pretend that things like "natural monopolies"(which is impossible) are a good thing but when it comes to free market economics they never will be.
To the OP, there is no way to separate this topic from politics because Nationalized Heathcare is an expansion of Gov't that serves to empower more politicians on both sides of the isle. I'll leave you all with a great American and his thoughts of socialized medicine(which is what we're really talking about here).
Video Here
