Here is the literal word for word question that I replied to:
"Why is the government in the business of disapproving prices in the first place?"
My answer was long winded and did not directly answer that question, but requires a person to come to the point themselves. Here's my answer: The government is in the business of disapproving prices because it requires people to purchase a product in order to engage in behavior that we feel is valuable, and the "government" (effectively, all of us) have decided that prices should be correlated with risk, and not discriminate on historically discriminated groups of people.
Are you seriously suggesting that the only answers to a rhetorical question should be arguing in favor of a position rather than explaining the logic behind a position?
At the same time, most of what you said was still relevant and true, and my disagreement does amount to an objection to your logical jumps, so it's probably an unfairly high bar I'm setting here.
With that said, I think, to address the core confusion, and contribute to the discussion, you'd need to answer "why insurance specifically"?
Yes, people insuring dangerous things is good. Yes, everyone (with a few caveats) needs to buy insurance. Yes, non-discrimination is good.
None of that gets you to "therefore, we obviously need a commission to set rates", which I think prompted the question.
As (I think) the questioner notes, everyone needs to buy food. Where's the commission that approves increases in tomato prices? I'm sure some stores would like to overcharge minority groups, but competition, and the threat of lawsuits, tends to take care of that.
A responsive (not necessarily correct) answer would look more like:
"There can't be meaningful competition in this arena, and cost of coverage is easy enough to estimate, so we've gone with a model of fixed prices."
Competition in the insurance market is pretty intense, though, so that wouldn't be a satisfying explanation.
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I do not believe it is a valuable use of my time to write, nor is it a valuable use of your time to read an argument in favor of the concept of a representative democracy, which is ultimately what an answer to "Why is the government in the business of disapproving prices in the first place?" would entail. The morals in play are these: 1. Do we consider the supposed "right" of a corporation to discriminate on the basis of race in pricing to supersede the right of a driver to affordable insurance?
2. Does a government have the right to require people to buy insurance?
3. Is the action of the "free market" in correcting unfair price discrimination so robust that government intervention is not only unnecessary, but counter-productive?
4. Is collectively subsidizing bad risks something that should be done explicitly (through government subsidies taken from taxation) or implicitly (through pricing that forces the cheapest insureds to pay a little more and the most expensive insureds to pay a little less)?
Answering these questions is an enormous waste of time if you're a libertarian or an anarchist. Asking a rhetorical question and expecting to get a moral justification for why "a government does a thing" is arguing in bad faith if you don't straight up say "Why is the government in the business of rejecting prices? Also, I don't think the government should reject prices because the free market will figure it out. I am not going to change my mind on this."
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My reply:
1. Entirely irrelevant. Corporations have no rights. Neither does anyone have a right to cheap services. It may be a good public policy goal for certain services to be more affordable than the market clearing price - I believe this should be addressed via subsidies absent a strong market failure argument.
2. I already agreed with this. Although I wouldn't frame any of this as a "right", the question is if it's a good idea for the government to do so. The government has a "right" to pay people to dig ditches and then refill them, but it would be a bad idea.
3. The burden of proof should be on the person arguing for additional regulations. I reject the attempt to shift the burden of proof. I'm asking for the case for regulation; "you can't conclusively prove that it's harmful" is not a positive case for regulation.
4. This is a legitimate question. You've made no arguments on this question so far, but I will reply to any arguments you may make on this issue in good faith. My prior is that explicit subsidies are likelier to be more efficient.
I'm not a libertarian or an anarchist. I'm just skeptical of government action and expect strong justifications for regulations. It's clear that many regulations are harmful and that some are beneficial, and it's also clear that many lawmakers or regulators have not thought all that deeply about what the best system of regulation is. Being skeptical and expecting justification before something like price controls is hardly bad faith.
Finally, "I think this particular thing the government does is harmful" is a very different claim than "I don't believe in representative democracy". Let's stipulate that representative democracy is better than any realistic alternative. That still doesn't tell us whether any particular action is good.
P.S. I tend to favor regulations that involve higher transparency, as opposed to banning actions completely, as there are strong economic benefits to information. I also like pigovian taxes on negative externalities. Don't assume that everyone you meet is the most extreme strawman that shares those views.
