health care system and waterworks
Mito
While following the caucuses, I am reading Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace. I did not know that New York City suffered from yellow fever outbreaks in the late 18th century. I did not know that the Manhattan Company in charge of supplying fresh water hijacked a municipal waterworks project. The company erected a reservoir far smaller than needed by the city and opted for cheaper technologies, keeping the interests of its stockholders uppermost (p.360-361).
I wonder what the difference is between a national health care system and public waterworks. They are both public goods (a waterworks, by the way, does have health consequences ). And yet the former remains a focus of an election in the 21st century. What explains the difference? The power of interested groups? To put it bluntly, the US appears not very different from other industrialized countries insofar as the provision of public goods other than health care is concerned. It is an interesting puzzle to an inquisitive but ignorant mind.
Mito,
Not sure if the book mentioned this, but the interests of NYC have overridden other communities in upstate NY to the tune of flooding them so we (in the city) can keep getting fresh water. Nice for us, not so nice for those who lost their home and land (both human and non-human) over the years as the reservoirs have had to be expanded.
M
January 18, 2008 at 8:11 pm
It’s quite hard to manage and organize waterworks by a free market system.
Sure you can have competition, bids, contractors or whatever upstream but at the distribution level (unless you don’t have indoor plumbing), it will be a monopoly.
aflakete
January 18, 2008 at 8:23 pm
M:
Thank you ! I appreciate every piece of information.
Unfortunately, I hear similar stories everywhere. In my neighborhood in Tokyo, there are lost villages sank under a reservoirs.
aflakete:
True. Maybe the same holds for health care. I also wonder whether there is a bad monopoly and a good one. I found the phrase “socialized medicine” (and reaction towards it in the US) quite interesting.
Well, Fabio once called me “communist” when I was carrying A4 papers instead of letter-size sheets…
mitoakiyoshi
January 19, 2008 at 5:33 am