@Carpetsmoker are we getting rid of the "specific-election" tag?

So just recently some people from politics in my uni were discussing about government structures. One of them raised a very hard question on whether there exists an economic system that is so mixed such that it has both left and right traits for both public and private sector infrastructures

It seems to me having government to be in charge of public services such as healthcare, electricty, water, and the private sector to compete in innovative industries is easier to imagine, but I have absolutely no idea what it would be like to have a economic system that is simutaneously both left and right

i mean, aren't free markets and socialism kinda contradict with each other in terms of ideals so you cannot have both things running a service at the same time?

@Federico Seemed like an uncontroversial decision? Also see: politics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2950/…

Wasn't specifically about that tag, though

Many countries in Europe mix both socialism and free market @Secret

how does it works?

For example, in The Netherlands we have private health insurance companies, and some private doctors/hospitals, but also fairly strict government regulations about what private practices can and can't do

More or less the same as ObamaCare as I've understood it (except a lot simpler)

It seems to work fairly well, as it tries to get the advantages from both sides

Before we had an NHS-like system (it changed in about 2002)

@Carpetsmoker ah, I saw that post, but before you added that line.

Actually I live in the UK now and wanted to see a doctor today, so I went in at 09:00 this morning to get an appointment at 14:00, but they said there's a good chance I'll have to wait an hour or more. pff

Never had that many problems in NL

@Carpetsmoker never went to a doctor in the NL, but I heard horror stories from my italian friends used to the italian system :P in DE is fairly similar to the NL, except that below a certain income all insurances must be equal.

but if you have government intervention/regulation, is the market still a free market. I am kinda confused since I had some chat with right wing political party people in australia, and most people within seemed to have the idea that free markets should have minimal government interventions?

I think I don't really understand what it means to be a free market I guess...

Well, "free market" isn't binary, right? You have 100% non-free markets, 100% free markets, and a lot of things in between

I don't think there are many truly "free" markets, there are always some government regulations. For example hotdog stands need to comply with food safety, etc.

yeah, that's true

I see

Italy isn't very organized in my experience @Federico

My girlfriend actually lost her passport in Italy a few years ago, and dealing with the police there was somewhat, ehm, how to put? Not exactly a smooth experience...

@Carpetsmoker not the organization, but access to specialists and so on

they were in severe pain and could not access a specialist because their GP would not allow them. and I am speaking of not being able to walk

or like girls are prescribed the pill for almost anything

(this comes from different girls independently, so I tend to believe it)

and we are talking about healthcare, police or bureaucracy are another matter

@Federico Wait, what?

You mean like contraception pill?

Why would you prescribe that for anything other than people wanting contraception?

@Carpetsmoker I had three women friend all separately telling me the same thing. Their GP would not prescribe anything else than a contraception pill, for nauseas, headaches, etc. anything. And they did not ask for contraception

Either they have been extremely unlucky, or I don't know what (I hope they were not trying to make a fool of me, because I would not be able to explain that either)

wow

That's terrible, since it actually has real side-effects

Anyway, would love to chat but I need to go to aforementioned drs appointment now, so I'm off :-)

see you!