What if cheeseburgers were like healthcare?

What would happen if we treated cheeseburgers like we treat other things in our society? What if cheeseburgers were subsidized the same way we subsidize healthcare, section 8 housing or education?
Let's imagine that in order to fight "hunger" the politicians created a voucher program so that the poor could have a cheeseburger. C'mon, can't a poor kid get a cheeseburger?
Let's say that the value of the voucher was $10, it could be redeemed at any burger joint for a $10 burger. Would any burger joint ever charge less than $10 for a burger?
No, of course not, it would be stupid to do so. So the minimum cost for everyone else for a burger would be $10 or whatever the voucher was worth. This is called a price floor.
But wait a minute, would you want a $10 burger? Remember the $10 burger will be designed to be the cheapest possible burger that meets whatever minimum burger standards that the government sets and that you will have to wait in line with the voucher people to get a $10 burger. If you want a good burger or you want some bacon on that you are going to have to pay much more. If you want to avoid the line and the sketchy voucher people then you will have to pay much more.
But wait a minute, what happens next? Well next everyone will complain about how #ty the voucher burgers are and how long the lines are. Then of course the only solution the burger companies and their politicians can offer is to raise the burger standards but then they will have to also raise the voucher value, then they can provide better burgers they say.
But wait a minute, what if the burger companies and their paid protestors with their "fight for $15" signs convince the public and politicians to raise the burger voucher to a $15 dollar value? Well then to get a good burger you are going to have to spend even more than that!

www.jetmag.com...


And who can afford $15 for a cheeseburger? Gosh, isn't the only solution to expand who is eligible to receive burger vouchers for "free" burgers?
With a more or less free market for cheeseburgers anyone can have as many burgers as they want, cheeseburgers can be bought for a dollar, can anyone reasonably deny that all of the things I described would occur if a burger voucher program was established? Of course it would be crazy to create such a program and lead to out of control price hikes and unsustainable burger markets and terrible burgers and service. Yet that is exactly how we approach many things in our society, we subsidize education and healthcare and housing exactly in the same fashion as the hypothetical burger voucher and we have the exact same consequences.
People react to this in two ways. Either they say, "very clever of course you are right" or "this is stupid" what no one has ever done is be able to disprove my theory. Am I wrong?

a reply to: funbobby

I see what you are trying to say and I am not about to argue with you. I will say that the problems comes in when you don't address the fact that there are requirements to obtain subsidized anything. That restricts the number of people that will have access to the vouchers. Since it is unlikely that all the people buying those burgers will have vouchers, the burger outlets will still have to meet the demands of those larger number of customers that are making purchases without vouchers.

The vouchers will then be treated much like the coupons distributed by the industry. If you have one, you get the burgers that are included in the restrictions of the coupon, or the voucher, at a discount or for free. Both have little impact on the normal day to day operations of the industry.

At least that is how I see it.

Government can only give what it takes from someone else. There are givers, takers and sellers. The givers buy their own burgers, which cost enough as it is. Now they have to buy a portion of the takers burger as well. The sellers raise the prices because they will go broke if they have to give away burgers for free. Of course, everyone knows the burgers aren't really free, including the sellers, but that is the beauty of it. We all pretend we don't know, or that we don't know the other guy knows, or that he knows we know...

Its such a beautifully orchestrated and choreographed dance of the macabre. And we all tap our foot to the tune.

originally posted by: MarlbBlack
a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

This is what ats has come to? sigh I need a huge margarita......

Make it three. I'll take two. Of course I expect it to be on your dime.

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

In my model there are limits to the vouchers that are strict at first but as the price of burgers/vouchers rises then they of course have to expand eligibility for the program also.
Like I said, who can afford a $15 burger?

" Both have little impact on the normal day to day operations of the industry. "

If that was true they would not create and distribute the coupons. Coupons are a great example of how the mostly free market provides the same product at different price points efficiently.

Coupons are not provided by taxpayers at taxpayer expense. coupons don't create industry wide price floors. If a company went crazy with coupons and gave out ones it could not afford to then they would go out of business. As we see in the model when the $10 burgers are crap they just get the government/taxpayers to pay more instead of going out of business.

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

So are you saying "this is stupid" without being able to explain why it is wrong?

a reply to: funbobby

You seem to be married to your model, but there are some flaws in your model. I know as a one time business owner that did business with the government, that when it became cost prohibitive for me to keep doing business with the government, I stopped doing business with the government.

Your model is based on a business that has more voucher customers than paying customers. A business that does that, is usually contracted by the government to provide for the needs of the government.

Most businesses cater to the whims of their paying customers. I don't see Burger King or MacDonald's going out of business because of customers with vouchers.

But I do see what you are trying to say. I just don't see how any business would work the way your model suggest.

originally posted by: funbobby
a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

So are you saying "this is stupid" without being able to explain why it is wrong?

No, that is not what I said. And I will say no more.

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

I don't see Burger King or MacDonald's going out of business because of customers with vouchers.

The model predicts the opposite happening, they make a fortune selling burgers for $10 and even more when they can influence the politicians to raise it to $15.

Whatever the government was paying you, if you didn't have the increased costs from compliance, would you charge less than that?

In other words if they are paying $20 an hour after the additional expenses incurred because you are working for the government and you can work for them as much as you want, would you set your rate for other customers at $20 or less than $20?


What we have in the healthcare, higher education and low income housing market is a marketplace where those with government subsidized vouchers far outnumber those who are "paying customers". Because the government subsidizes large numbers of people's healthcare, government student loans and grants, and section 8 housing. That's why burgers are $1 and their prices advertised on billboards and it is hard to even find out how much an MRI costs before you buy it. That's why the price of college has been going up so quickly.

Actually, I was thinking what would happen if healthcare was like cheeseburgers and you could buy good healthcare cheap because the system wasn't rigged to cause healthcare to be artificially more expensive than it should be.

But that would require recognizing health insurance as racketeering and banning it and forcing the doctors and hospitals and drug companies to compete for lower costs and better quality for the price paid. Or they could just go into another line of work and see how easy it is to get paid $100 for 20 minutes of work.