When
a top-notch salesman tries to get the most for a product he is selling, he'll
delve into all kinds of explanations to confuse you as to the merit of what he
is selling for the price that he is asking. And most of the time, he'll succeed
to entice you to buy the product.
The
way to deal with a sharp salesman is to cut short his or her verbal diarrhea by
calling for the bottom line. Something that goes like this: What exactly are
you selling? At what price are you selling it? When you get a response, you
snap back: I know of someone selling the same product for half the price. Can
you do better?
In
a free market system, the “fair” value of a product or a service is determined
by the law of supply and demand. Consider it to be an ironclad rule for, it has
been tested over and over throughout the centuries, and was proven to work
every time under normal conditions. Thus, in the above example, if the product
is in short supply, you'd find yourself in a seller's market, and the salesman
would have called your bluff, responding to your question as follows: No; I
cannot do better, so go ahead and buy the product from that someone. And you'd
change your mind and pay the asking price because you badly need the product.
But
if on the other hand, the product was available in the marketplace in ample
supply, and was going at the price he asked for or lower, you'd find yourself
in a buyer's market. The salesman would have agreed to sell you the product at the
price you offered. He might even have sold for less, had you offered less.
Can
there be an exception to the rule of supply and demand? Yes, there can be an
exception, and it is referred to as: coerced to accept the deal under duress.
This means you were forced to pay a high price for a product regardless of its
fair value because of extraneous considerations that would cost you enormously
if you rejected the price imposed on you.
And
nothing puts someone under duress like the matter of a loved-one's life being
in the balance. If someone that's dear to you is on the verge of dying, you
will not haggle over payment, you will not even waste time getting into a
debate about it. You'll pay the doctor what he or she asks, even if it is an
order of magnitude above the going honorarium.
It
is for this reason that every civilized country has set up a system which
relieves the patients and their families of the fear they might someday be
forced to choose between the health of a loved-one or financial ruin. Or worse,
having to choose between financial ruin or the life of a loved-one. The system
that those countries have set up, came to be known as single payer –– the payer
being the government acting as both the insurer of first and last resorts.
So,
the question that baffles the whole world is this: Why on Earth has the United
States not implemented this system? The answer is that there is opposition to
it from the special interest groups who benefit from the existing system, which
is one of duress. It is a system that has America pay twice as much for
healthcare as any other nation, and yet delivers an inferior product as
measured by the various mortality rates of its citizens when compared to the
rest of the world.
To
see how horrendously idiotic the stance of the interest groups has been, you
may read the article that came under the title: “Socialized health care would
have made coronavirus worse, not better,” and the subtitle: “Health care best
supported by free market principles.” It was written by Kelli Ward and
published on April 25, 2020 in The Washington Times.
Please
note that Kelli Ward was a medical doctor that turned politician, and now
serves as lobbyist for the so-called Health Maintenance Organizations, a kind
of “middlemen” who stand between the patients and their doctors, and benefit
from the misery of the American public.
To
make her point, which is intended to impress the politicians who will
ultimately decide the fate of the country's healthcare system, Kelli Ward has
played the role of the top-notch saleslady. She falsely asserted that the
existing system in America was the best in the world, and then delved into all
kinds of explanations to confuse the readers as to the merit of what she is
selling … which is the continuation of the existing system.
The
problem with Ward's explanations, however, is that she relied too much on
playing the game of statistics. What she did amounted to a verbal diarrhea that
was ripe to be cut off, as the bottom line was ready to be called: What exactly
is she selling? At what price is she selling it?
The
answer to the first question is that she was proven to sell an inferior product
by the mortality rates in America, and she was selling the product at twice the
price of everywhere else.
As
to her statistics, all the numbers she quoted get blown away as fake when you
look at the bottom line. Here is the reality of the situation:
America's
population amounts to 4.3 % the world's population. According to the latest
figures, America has 33 % of those infected with the coronavirus disease, and
27% of those that died from the pandemic.