When one of our (norwegian) banks got "bailed" out by the government, what the government did was that it went in, set the share price at zero and took it all over.

Then, when they'd stabilized the bank and made it solvent, the former shareholders started crying about how it was unfair that the government "stole" their shares, even though the reason the bank needed to be bailed out was that it had managed to lose all of its legally required "own capital" i.e. there was nothing left of the shareholders' money when the government went in.

How will these "bailouts" work in the US? Is the government going to take over all the banks' assets and just "zero out" the shares? Then run the banks until the government (and the taxpayers) get their money back? Or are they going to get these banks up on their feet and then hand them back to the shareholders or sell them off cheap (meaning the government is content to handle this at a loss to themselves and the taxpayers)?

And now, when the government has to bail out all these banks, wouldn't this be the moment to implement necessary banking reforms so that when the banks get up on their feet they'll be committed to a more fiscally conservative approach?

An economic crisis like this one isn't the wrong time to fix this, it's the right time to fix it. Isn't it? Because anything you don't fix will just set you up for another big crisis down the line.

"That's part of the issue, Knut.  Many people see fully government funded health care as the inferior solution.  Costs would likely be even higher under that type of system because of all the redundancies and inefficiencies in government run programs in the US."

Are they really that inferior? From what I've read, several government funded health care programs are among the best in the US.  And a fully government funded health care system does seem to have some advantages: It doesn't need a profit margin, it doesn't need to go to the expense of linking every expense to a specific patient, it makes preventative care (which is often cheaper) more available,  there is no argument with insurance people over costs (although there will of course be government bean counters instead) and it covers everybody.

Certainly the hospitals and whatever bureaucracies follow with them need to be efficient, but that is the case either way. Is the bureaucracy of the private insurance companies really that preferrrable?

Isn't it really the case that a government run health care system theoretically can be run as efficiently and economically as a privately funded one. And further, if their operation is otherwise equally efficient, then savings due to the elimination of a need for paying out profits to shareholders, as well as the reduction of the bureaucracy required for patient-specific billing etc, might mean that a government funded health care system is actuallly more comprehensive, cheaper and more efficient.

There is no "natural law" that says government run programs must by necessity be more costly, inefficient and bureaucratic. And even for them to be equally costly, the government program has to be so substantially less efficient as to overtake the profit margins of the insurance companies (which is the big difference in costs between privately funded and government funded health care)

And as was pointed out in reference to the impact on the US economy of abandoning private health care insurance, those profit margins are enormous. Enormous.

If government bureaucracies are so bad, then don't try to fix them by electing people whose Big Idea is that big government will never work. Elect someone who actually wants them to work, and you'll soon be able to spot the difference.

Michael Retour wrote: No, government funded health care isn't inferior.

Interesting -- care to describe for us your most recent experience with government funded health care in the United States?  I'm assuming you've got something to base this statement on -- perhaps experience with government-provided health care via a Veterans Administration hospital, or some government-funded clinic perhaps?

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't the 85 billion dollar bailout to AIG yesterday a loan?  A low interest loan but still a loan.  That means the government would be getting the money back over time after things stabilize.  It's not like your example of what happened in Norway.  Did that company have to pay the funds back to the government?

Interesting -- care to describe for us your most recent experience with government funded health care in the United States?  I'm assuming you've got something to base this statement on -- perhaps experience with government-provided health care via a Veterans Administration hospital, or some government-funded clinic perhaps?

My brother has had nothing but nightmares, red tape and jumping through hoops with the VA.

The hospitals and physicians frequently eat these charges.

Yes.  There's no way to recoup.

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William McCormick:  No they don't. They pass them on to insurance companies by charging someone who has insurance $8.00 for a Tylenol.

Adam Hutchinson: Yeah there is.  They'll get a judgement against you and garnish your wages.

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You are both right to a partial degree, but also confused or lacking in real-world information.  There are attempts to pass on costs, but in the case of physicians, they are limited by what 3rd party payer's will reimburse- as are hospitals.  Most offices make substantially less money now than 10 to 15 years ago.  This has led many offices to the situation where they see more patients in less time, use less office personnel and spend less time seeing inpatients.

And some individuals are sent to collection agencies- just as someone would call the police if you walked out of a grocery store without paying.  On the other hand, most physicians will take minimal payments and write off substantial bills for patients with true hardship.