Or maybe the school my kid’s in has all its money looted by executives…and in the middle of the year I have to take a month off work to find a new one…that I have to pay for myself…brilliant!

Or you could find a school that allows for month-to-month payments. My son goes to a private school and that is how 95%+ of the parents pay. I also tell people to look for this when looking for a martial arts school. With the latter not because of “looting” but because I view the month-to-month schools as being more interested in teaching the art than making a quick buck.

I think the libertarians here miss the point about adverse selection. It is a theoretical problem with markets with asymmetrical information. If there is a well-functioning insurance market, then someone has found a way to overcome it.

Yes, but it usually entails things like different permiums and deductibles, contracts that result in non-coverage if the hidden information is revealed etc. All of these things modern day progressives see as unfair.

What is truly hypocritical about the modern progressives is that they don’t seem to see the unfairness of those with the hidden information taking advantage of not just the insurance company (i.e., people), but also of the insurance companies other customers (more people). I’m not sure if this is due to some sort of schizophrenic like nature of the progressive philosophy (corporations are bad, profit making is bad, etc.) or just simple ignorance.

I think the libertarians here miss the point about adverse selection. It is a theoretical problem with markets with asymmetrical information. If there is a well-functioning insurance market, then someone has found a way to overcome it.

But one insight behind social democracy is that many socially-desirable insurance markets don’t exist. Another is that people are rationally ingnorang about risk, and so can be better off when a paternalistic state makes them pay for insurance against risks they would otherwise ignore.

I have a complaint against a teacher, I gotta sit on hold for two hours before getting to talk to some teenager in India reading off a script…perfect!

Kaplan is a private corporation, and yet all teachers must provide students with their email address and/or a phone number and are required to respond within 24 hours to any query.

Or maybe the school my kid’s in has all its money looted by executives…and in the middle of the year I have to take a month off work to find a new one…that I have to pay for myself…brilliant!

Would you like me to point you to the many cases of government bureaucrats and teacher’s union thugs looting the money that should have been spent on education? Or how about the time that one of my sister’s teachers got sick in the middle of the year and was replaced with a incompetent substitute? (One of the reasons my sister switched schools, incidentally.)

I’d rather vote for that private army you guys keep pushing…hehe

Much worse than that public army currently using your tax dollars to wage a war against a country that represented no threat to you or me.

The idea that people are going to vote for a school that resembles “nothing more than your standard strip-mall office complex, like a dentists office with larger rooms” is exactly…zero.

Imagine having to choose between a school run by Enron and a school run by Microsoft:

I have a complaint against a teacher, I gotta sit on hold for two hours before getting to talk to some teenager in India reading off a script…perfect!

Or maybe the school my kid’s in has all its money looted by executives…and in the middle of the year I have to take a month off work to find a new one…that I have to pay for myself…brilliant!

I’d rather vote for that private army you guys keep pushing…hehe

This is not a market failure of insurance because it falls outside the definition of insurance. Insurance insures against risk. Pre-existing conditions are not a risk; they are a certainty.

Maybe you could say that this is a general failure of the market, but that is not a new complaint; everyone already knows that the “market” itself cannot provide charity to people who can’t afford things. That is something only charitable people and organizations, or thieving governments, can do.

School districts enjoy certain economies of scale because they are educating every kid in America. Under the voucher program, the cost of replacing one elementary school with 30-40 smaller ones to suit the tastes of different parents would probably double or triple the costs.

I teach part-time for Kaplan, a company that specializes in test preparation. They have a large number of offices with classroom facilities in every state in the U.S. (and multiple in driving distance from me), and they also offer classes at local schools and other facitilities. Their offices are nothing more than your standard strip-mall office complex, like a dentists office with larger rooms. Yet I doubt they spend anywhere near the amount of money you cited.

You are stuck in the mold of thinking that the free market will provide education in exactly the same way that the government monopoly does. Life doesn’t quite work like that, Bub.

And anyway, why do you care so much about the costs entrepreneurs and their venture capitalists will have to pay to create new schools? Since when is that a concern of statists? You guys are able to think of the most absurd reasons to reject a free market in education when the serious problems of state monopoly education are staring you directly in the face.