(07-26-2018, 04:18 PM)pirkster Wrote: Sounds exactly like what would happen with nationalized healthcare and education.

Oops, it already did.

Both healthcare and education still have quite a bit of private competition.  While neither is completely a "free market" today, neither is "nationalized" either.  Both are somewhere in between

The free market is best, but, if there's no competition, it fails. 
The government has to intervene to either break up the monopoly, and restore the free competitive market, or supervise the process of setting prices.

Cable companies and electric companies are both examples of monopolies that can not be broken up.  At the end of the day, there is one wire to your house, and one company owns it. 
So the government supervises the prices.
In Florida your electric rates are supervised by the State Regulatory Commission.  Your cable rates are typically supervised at the city or county level.  Most of the money doesn't go to the government, but, the private owner has to demonstrate that they are acting in the public interest, or out of need, before they raise prices.
If we didn't do this, there would be no way to prevent the cable company or the electric company from charging you whatever they felt like charging you.

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