If only we could get profits out of the system, then things would work right. That's what proponents of government-run health care often suggest. Yet ObamaCare's "co-ops" – including one in Massachusetts – are proving that health care must be run like a business, or it will run into the ground.
The idea behind ObamaCare's co-ops (Consumer Oriented and Operated Plans) was that traditional insurance companies had failed to offer affordable products because they operate as for-profit companies. If co-ops were non-profit, and depended solely on government loans for initial funding, then they would be able to offer affordable consumer products.
HAVANA (AP) — A weeklong celebration of commerce is underway in one of the world's last communist countries, with hundreds of international corporations including some big U.S. firms flocking to Havana to try to do business with a government basking in expectations of growth set off by detente with Washington.
The Havana International Fair has long been among the stranger events in the world of international business: a trade fair in a cash-starved country that's embargoed by the world's most powerful nation and views markets with deep suspicion. For years, Cuban bureaucrats, foreign diplomats and businessmen gamely trooped through the halls of the Pabexpo fairgrounds on the outskirts of Havana, eyeing stalls stocked with products like Spanish canned vegetables and dutifully attending government presentations on opportunities for investments in state-controlled pig farms and nickel mines.
