How to Make Using the Restroom as Expensive and Inconvenient as Getting a Physical

I don't think healthcare is too expensive, I think other goods and services are priced too low. If using the toilet cost as much as a physical, then people would remark on the reasonable cost of healthcare. Therefore, we should create a system that vastly raises the price of going to the restroom. Here is my plan:

Use Only the Best Toilets: Toilet prices range from modest to ultra-expensive. The very best in home and commercial toilets is the Toto Neorest 600. Upon approach, the lid automatically opens and the air purifier activates. The built-in washer and dryer make toilet paper optional. Six seconds after leaving the commode's sensor zone, it flushes and lowers the seat and lid. With the touch of a button, you can warm the seat, change the water temperature, and perform a "Cyclone flush" if needed. At nearly $5,000 apiece, this is the highest-quality toilet available and thus, the one that's best suited for every American's rear end.

We pass various pieces of legislation that call for the gradual elimination of the substandard toilets and their replacement with the superior model. Obviously, seniors and people below the poverty line would qualify for free toilets, all others must pay for their own or have their employers include it as part of their compensation package. There are approximately 350 million private and public toilets in the United States. That comes out to $1.75 trillion before installation, but I'm optimistic that we'd receive a discount on such a big order. Either way, you're looking at the horizon of what will be a multi-trillion dollar recession-proof industry. Investors anyone?

Only the Best Toilet Makers and Technicians: Using the bathroom plays a pivotal role in the life of every American, therefore we'd only want the best companies to fashion the toilets. The makers of the Neorest 600 can't fulfill such a large order, so they will need to license the manufacture of their design to qualified companies. Each state legislature should make the qualifications so stringent and exacting that only the best companies could bid on the project. Since these thrones use the latest in toilet tech, only highly trained technicians may install and repair your commode. They must go through a few hundred hours of training at schools your state legislatures have deemed appropriate. The number of schools and seats available must be kept at a minimum lest you flood the labor market and push wages down. Combine high wages with the high cost of goods, and you'll have families reeling when they are beset with so much as a faulty flapper. The elite toilet repairman class is too few in number to make house calls, so if your toilet is clogged you will need to make an appointment for the following morning and find a way to bring it to the shop.

The Outcome:

After a few years of this system, we will see a vast increase in the number of middle-class Americans who can no longer afford a decent bathroom. Some families band together and buy a timeshare toilet, but others will have no choice but to go in the streets. Imagine that! America... the most industrialized nation in the world, and still there are people who don't have a comfortable place to eliminate bodily wastes. With a world like that, do you think people will complain about the cost of healthcare?

The Solution:

If my plan were implemented, it would undoubtedly become a hot-button issue in the next presidential election. Government is in the right place and has the right resources to ensure that every American has a decent place to go to the bathroom, and for free. Having a $5,000 toilet in the house is a right, not a privilege.

Voters will be looking for answers, so we must correctly place blame. Under no circumstances can we let people know that the aforementioned policies artificially limited the supply of labor and goods, which precipitated the astronomical rise in prices. We can easily place blame on the toilet manufactures, the toilet installers, or the training institutes even though their every move has been dictated by a complex code of laws that was supposed to keep everything under control in the first place. Government can easily convince the public that it has the ability to bring prices down, even if it means nationalizing parts of the toilet and bathroom industry. The government can even justify oversight on diapers since babies who don't use the toilet are indirectly affecting the industry. Toilet paper too can be managed, perhaps rationed, with exceptions given to those with irritable bowel syndrome, who would be allowed to get a permit by visiting the Department of Toilets and standing in a very long line.

After blame has been sufficiently passed, then it is up to Congress to hammer out a 2,000-page piece of legislation that further controls the toilet industry and ultimately makes it more expensive and inconvenient. It will be penned in English, but the bill will not make sense. Congress will raise taxes, borrow money, and pass strict laws, but amazingly prices will go up and availability will go down. By then, people will all have forgotten about healthcare and will demand even more government involvement to control the spiraling costs of toilets.

Problem solved.

What a bunch of crapola.

That's what I think of government too! :)

People who believe that should consider a move to Afghanistan or Somalia. I hear they have very weak central governments and no laws to restrict your freedom or liberty.

Aloha

Why does it always have to be extremes?
We have too much Gov. and most politicians are screwin' the rest of us royal.

People who believe THAT should realize that, though people have the natural right to government if they wish-they do not have the right to use the coercive force of government against others and that even the founders-especially the anti-federalists held that the right of secession is natural and real. (Begin by reading Rothbard, Hoppe, Bastiat, the Anti-Federalist papers, and Thomas Paine, for your ignorance on this is quite glaring.)

The debate can go on for another 250 years. Should there be a strong central government or should be small States that have their own representative governments? They debated it then, we still debate it today.

I don't read the works of anarchists.

Without government, our civilization would crumble.

anarchist
–noun 1. a person who advocates or believes in anarchy or anarchism.
2. a person who seeks to overturn by violence all constituted forms and institutions of society and government, with no purpose of establishing any other system of order in the place of that destroyed.
3. a person who promotes disorder or excites revolt against any established rule, law, or custom.


That seems quite extreme to me.

Your assertion is false, as demonstrated by a number of writers (as well as practice in several countries including Somalia and early America).

Those can all be used, but in this particular instance, number 2 is most accurate. (recall that civilization existed before government did)

I would never choose to go back to those days.

I am #3!









(by the way, I don't believe that classifying Thomas Paine as an anarchist is very accurate)

I didn't mean to. Thanks for clarifying.

Paine was a radical that still inspires the anarchists.

I can't even imagine the craziness with out a government at this point. Once again I am glad I am 60 and not 20.

I think we jump to conclusions too often. I Think too much of anythign can be bad.

My beliefs falls under a limited government, which must follow strict rules, and, in turn, enforce these rules on citizens who violate them as well. This is what we, as a country were founded on. This is known as a republic. We have made some progresses over time, but i fear that we are becoming unbalanced.

If the government becomes too big, who will regulate them? At what point do you think we are working harder for uncle sam, than we are ourselves.

This is my concern. Add up all the taxes you can think of. State/federal income tax, property taxes, sales taxes, inheritance taxes, gasoline and cigaret taxes, registrations, tolls, and most importantly inflation, then apply it to your own income.

You will find, that a person making $60,000 a year, is paying approx $40,000 in taxes.

So, my question is, at what point will the government be too large?

I guess Jefferson and Franklin were too?

At it's best government is merely a "necessary evil". But this is at it's best.

Better to have no government, than a bad government.

Don't think we've quite reached the "bad" part, but we are steadily getting worse...

As an anarchist, I find Jefferson pretty inspiring (especially the DoI), but he made some compromises as president (such as expanding the Federal powers) that I don't care for. Basically, his philosophy was better than his practice, IMHO.