rewind2846: elysive: Because many of those services are being closely monitored and regulated, you probably aren't being price gouged. Things are just expensive and the economy sucks. Oh, and bureaucracy does drive up the cost of doing business.

Here's an idea - instead of whining like a little crybaby about the evil boogyman called "bureaucracy" and his equally evil cousin "red tape", why not just do what you're supposed to do in the first place?
If there's a regulation that makes it so that an insurance company doesn't fark people over for pre-existing conditions, why not... refuse to fark them over for pre-existing conditions? If there's some evil regulation that restaurant bathrooms must be handicap accessible, why not just... make the bathrooms handicap accessible?

See how easy that is? Most of us, at least those with any home training whatsoever, know what is right and what is wrong. Unfortunately, the more money people make the less likely they are to listen to that inner voice which tells them "this isn't right".

See, if you look at most regulations that businesses have to deal with, including insurance companies, utility companies, cell phone and internet companies, banks and the like, you will see the reasons for those regulations written right into the regulation itself. They are to make sure that these businesses do what they are supposed to be doing in the first place but don't because doing the right thing to do would eat into their profits.

And yes, we still are being gouged, though not as deeply as if there were no regulations. This is because corporations have more of a hand in writing these regulations than ever before, with former legislators lobbying for them in DC and on the local level every single day, and present legislators being promised fat jobs as lobbyists when their terms end. There are plenty of loopholes and get-arounds they use, because they wrote the the loopholes and get-arounds, and this is why they continue to make gajillions in profit ...

So are you saying the problem is or isn't with the government? It seems to me that the modern lobbying and padding politicians' pockets should just be illegal. I thought price fixing was illegal or else companies like insurers would be competing for our business. I know I did price comparisons when shopping for health insurance and we shopped around for car insurance. Never felt that gouged or pressured into a specific price. The only time I felt a captive audience was with our utilities...where I believe pricing is more heavily regulated anyway.

I do understand why insurers have used the pre-existing conditions thing...I truly do. It's like getting into a car accident and calling to buy car insurance while sitting in the wreckage. If you know you have repairs that need fixin' before you buy the coverage, your risk and cost to the insurer goes up substantially.

That said, changing insurers is such a pain in the ass. I moved states and quit my job and HAD to get new insurance, but one insurer wanted to deny me prescription coverage altogether because I had used prescription coverage too much in the past and one insurer wanted to deny me all mental health coverage. Both of those are ridiculous. For instance if a person is depressed in the past, do you think it is acceptable that an insurance company can or should remove their future safety net because mental health coverage represents a cost to them? And can anyone afford to buy medication out of pocket? It seems unfair and maybe dangerous to me, but I recognize that insurance is a business and they are balancing the real and present costs of doing business. The problem I had was I couldn't just offer to pay more for these services and every company I went to seemed to have some bizarre condition. So I appreciate Obamacare regulations...but I probably do cash in a lot of my premiums in prescription benefits, so maybe that one insurance company was onto something.

If I don't go through a private provider then it becomes my tax dollars that are absorbing the cost of a poorly managed service. The customer/taxpayer pays either way.

And when I mentioned bureaucracy, I didn't mean "zomg I have to follow the rules?" I meant filling out forms every time you need to wipe your ass. When rules become that convoluted in offices they often hire extra people just to fill out paperwork or they just increase prices to cover worker overtime. I worked in a place where they did not hire extra people and it was a clusterfark. I got to work overtime for no extra pay and then I quit. Woohoo!

I'm sure that most businesses with customers will happily make themselves handicap accessible and will raise prices (or do tax write offs) if they must do so to afford the upgrade. I don't recall complaining about regulations. The only difference is when a private business does something like this, you pay through price increases. When the public builds a handicap ramp, your tax dollars pay. When politicians do stupid things, your tax dollars pay. At least the private business owner is not compelled to drive his customers away with price hikes unless absolutely necessary.

rewind2846: elysive: And when I mentioned bureaucracy, I didn't mean "zomg I have to follow the rules?" I meant filling out forms every time you need to wipe your ass. When rules become that convoluted in offices they often hire extra people just to fill out paperwork or they just increase prices to cover worker overtime. I worked in a place where they did not hire extra people and it was a clusterfark. I got to work overtime for no extra pay and then I quit. Woohoo!

Which goes back to my original premise... why do the regulations exist in the first place? Is it because some politician woke up one bright and early morning, reached deeply into his/her gaping anus, and pulled out a steaming pile of regulations? I know that's what some people who believe that nothing should be regulated, as least if that nothing has anything to do with them or what they want to do, but that is not the case.
Regulations, laws and other government and societal constructs exist for one reason: somebody farked up.

A good example - traffic laws that don't permit people to drive through red lights. Reason for those laws: obvious. People can die if they aren't obeyed, and people did die before they were enacted. They farked up, and new laws were written to make the fark-ups fewer and further between.

Another good example: pollution regulations. Wasn't too long ago (less than 50 years) that factories poured millions of gallons of who-knows-what-the-fark into lakes, streams, the ocean, even into underground aquifers and pits under suburbs and housing developments. Whole neighborhoods and towns became unlivable, dozens of people developed cancers and other diseases on just one block, and some areas still haven't been cleaned up - and may never be - well enough for people to be allowed to even WALK on the ground there, lest they take those poisons out on their shoes.
Got so bad a whole new agency had to be formed, the EPA (by a republican president!) to put a stop to it. Even today there are STILL compan ...

I have no problems with the existence of most rules, laws, regulations or the other and I wasn't complaining about regulations on these industries (yet you still seem to be going at me like I'm an evil adversary)...but are you seriously defending lawyers and the gaping anuses of our grand politicians? One can be okay with the existence of laws without agreeing with every implementation thereof and seriously...there are plenty of stupid implementations! For instance, I am okay with red lights and even yellow lights, but when cities use traffic studies to tune their yellow light times to hand out more tickets rather than increase public safety, then they are being jackasses and aren't following the spirit of the law. Red lights are no longer about "someone farking up", they are about revenue and making paper. Sorry to burst your bubble.

And I never defended companies who polluted shiat (nor did I ever defend any company's outright wrongdoing against the public). It's just that a company filling out a form stating that they disposed of waste in a safe/alternative way does not guarantee that they aren't still abusing the environment. Unethical people aren't suddenly going to become ethical when completing official paperwork. People can lie all day on their paperwork. Companies do it. Cops lie in their reports. I've seen government employees lie on forms about having completed things when they were too lazy to actually do the tasks. There's nothing new about lying. But the more paperwork you give people that is irrelevant to actually accomplishing their assigned tasks, the more I believe you see people BS'ing it. I even hated filling out the eight forms I had to fill out going to a new eye doctor and the three forms I had to fill out returning to my ob/gyn this year and I had to resist skimming the forms. I know some of those forms are for safety but most are because they don't want to get sued...so I'll ask again. You really want to defend lawyers??? Maybe you aren't, but I can't tell if lawyers help write law in your mind. Btw, I didn't know you had to be a lawyer to read and find a way to cheat.

So the guiding message of your post seems to be that all private businesses are evil, politicians are all good and we should be thankful for even the most idiotic laws enacted to counter malicious acts of individuals. Bureaucracy will cure the moral ills of the private sector.