$300 Million dollars is a lot of money. 1% of that could could guarantee my family financial security for many generations (if invested properly offshore where money is welcome). With that said, what is the most ethical way to spend $300 million dollars?
On Healthcare, or a video game?
It seems like an obvious answer but as simple as it is, we have to look at some more info than just the presented.
My example is not a mere hypothetical. It is a legitimate question, and we already have an answer.
For some it is obvious what I am comparing. Grand Theft Auto V and the Obamacare website.
Is it really even a fair match up?
Now according to the testimony given before congress Sibelius stated, “Congresswoman, we have spent about $118 million on the website itself, and about $56 million has been expended on other IT to support the web.”
That adds up to $174 million. So to all of the ACA defenders out there I will make apples compare to apples. This “low” cost is attributed to IT support and building the site. You know, the things millions of bloggers have done for under $1,000 for YEARS now, but I digress.
Once you add in call centers and the other things a normal company needs the cost then goes up to roughly $350 Million (as outlined by GAO)
So you have the Obamacare website and exchange at $350 million
Then we have Grand Theft Auto V coming in at $265 million
Both had relatively similar development time frames. Both had online content. More importantly both had issues with their online content.
Now for the differences.
GTA V was 100% optional. Some people probably do not know it exists. No one really knew they were making it (outside of gamers) It also cost no money to ANYONE who was not directly invested in creating the game. Basically a private company decided to go out and seek funding and take risks on an investment. They spent the most money ever spent in the creation of a simple video game. Its only benefit is entertainment…right?
(Hold that thought!)
Obamacare is not 100% optional, everyone knew it existed/was being created. Obama spent a ton of your money traveling the country to …. tell you about it.
So the government took a bunch of your money to then use it to tell you how you are not smart enough or capable of getting your own health coverage. They then took more of your money to develop a website to coordinate exchanges for the healthcare that they approve of….for you. It was the most expensive website ever created. The benefit is that everyone in the country will have health coverage that is better and cheaper than before. This sounds like a good deal right?
Lets break this down in a ‘Freakonomics’ way.
Both products launch and immediately the online portions of the products are not working properly. However with GTA V, there is a portion that is not online. This gave consumers value in the sense that they were still able to enjoy the entirety of the original game. Within a week Rockstar (the games creator) had solved almost all of the online issues and we were able to play freely. In addition as an apology for the slight delay they are putting $500,000 of GTA V game money into the accounts of everyone who logged into the online portion in the first month of the release.
This is the type of service that the private industry gives because they are completely dependent on the happiness of the customers. Customers who freely give up their labor (in the form of money) to purchase a product. So not only was this a success. The game sold so well that Rockstar set world records going over $1 billion in sales within a day or two.
What happens next is why the free market is nothing short of a miracle. In just six weeks retailers sold 29 million copies of the game! At $59.99 a game that is $1,711,000,000. A private company took a risk at creating something and in doing so they created wealth. They turned $265 million worth of labor and supplies into BILLIONS! This money is now circulating all through the economy. Countless retailers, online stores, investors, etc. are generating wealth from this simple product. People who put some money in and got a lot more back. They then go and buy things, they might invest it in other things…maybe they invest the profits in healthcare…… More importantly, there is very little restriction in the creation of the game. The only real thing the government does is slap a rating on it. A rating that no one really gives a crap about. This allowed Rockstar to give the customer what the customer wants…not what Rockstar wants for the customer.
Can you imagine if the government controlled the content and design of the game? Well lets look at what would happen.
They controlled the content of a website. Much easier to make and for some reason it cost almost $100 million more to build. This product was also backed by a law forcing people to purchase it. From an outside view, this should already look like a major win. Obviously not everyone bought GTA V. But with this product you have to get it.
So this website launches and it crashes. No one can get on to signup. Additionally the only backup are paper forms which are timely.
To date the website still does not work properly, and almost no one is signing up for it.
Whats worse the people who did not have insurance that are trying to sign up are learning that the plans available actually cost more than what they could have got before. So they cannot afford insurance still and since it is a law that you must have insurance, they have to pay a fine. I have heard for some it is around $100 (ironically you could buy GTA V and have about $30 left over to pay for a doctors visit).
Even worse than that, people who were previously insured, could afford it, and liked their coverage are losing their insurance. Or technically not losing it, but if they want similar coverage they have to pay a lot more money. For most it is more than they can afford. So they then become uninsured.
This program is wildly unpopular, and is doing the exact opposite of its intentions. The government has depleted wealth. They took the labors of the people (in the form of taxes) and gave them back a product worse off than what there labor dollars were originally worth.
Can you imagine what our economy would be like if we had GTA V style product releases in every sector regularly? I guarantee that execs at Rockstar and their investors got very rich off of this deal, but the success TRICKLED DOWN. Their product enabled others to exploit the game and make money off it as well, and the people at the bottom feeding the machine are happy to do it. They feel that their $60 was worth the entertainment received. Everyone in the transaction is happy.
So which was better?
I could argue that GTA V did more for the health and wellness of the country than Obamacare did.
