I do not have a full grasp on economics; my expertise lies elsewhere. But with all the money these goons spend, what’s even the point of a monetary system? They just do whatever they want anyway, using whatever resources the other rich goons give them, while everyone else just takes what little they leave for us. There is no way the government is paying the debt.
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The US national debt is $38 trillion, soon to be $39 trillion.
Burning money for no reason other than hate and greed.
It's too bad they can't just use one of those money guns to shoot money directly
Too bad you can't use the resources that it takes for a multi-trillion dollar weapons industry to uh... no, wait. You totally could.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93industrial_complex
The US necessarily wouldn't even need to spend more on healthcare to improve the health of it's citizens; a lot couls be achieved with stricter food regulations, like limiting the usage of corn syrup or sugar content in some groceries. Making food healthier means less obesity means less strain on the healthcare system.
In a Universal healtcare system, there is a monetary incentive for the autorities to make laws and regulations to prevent disease - prevention is a lot cheaper than fixing things after the damage is done.
In a pure for profit healthcare system there is no such incentive for the autorities - in some ways, there might even be the opposite incentive, depending on the levels of Corruption and how much more profit the Healthcare sector can make if people are more sick: after all, when a country spends twice as much as a percentage of the GDP in Healthcare, that means there's a lot more money to be made in Healthcare, and private interests have an incentive to buy politicians and regulators to help them profit as much as possible.
Beyond this there is also the whole "doing what's best for our people" incentive, which is the US is so weak that it doesn't even apply to some obviously bad things (for example, easy availability of guns, which is definitelly bad for people's health) much less to more subtle pathways to damage people's health such as unhealthy food.
Universal healthcare also allows the state to have enormous negotiation power. Some European countries co-operate to get even better prices on pharmaceuticals, just imagine the state placing on the table that best offer will give you access to a market 340 million people, gouging nada.
Excellent points!
Also need to subsidize grocery distribution into food deserts. Many people don’t even have access to fresh produce if they wanted it.
Fat people often just get scolded by doctors for being fat and are not offered any actual care. Lots of fat people refuse to go to the doctor unless they're practically dying because it can be humiliating and/or traumatic. Also BMI is anti-science bullshit. Refined sugar is not good for you, but don't blame fat people for straining the system. Blame the system for straining fat people.
I don't eat nearly as much food as I used to, and now exercise more regularly by going to the pool every other day. The doctor still thinks I am not doing enough. Here's the thing: my intake of food is about 1/3rd of a close relative.
Between the doctor's skepticism when I tell them that I have done things differently, and the lack of weight loss from a changing lifestyle, I am coming to a conclusion: don't trust this doctor, and genetics is definitely a factor.
It is my hope for AI doctors to become reliable someday. My human doctor doesn't really look at me, and doesn't listen, and I hate talking. I prefer writing, because talking is hard. Being raised in the boonies, conversation in realtime isn't a skill of mine.
We have poor nutritional education in the USA as well. With the addition of blaming addicts for their behavior than those who are addicting them. Looking at you sugar/HFCS in everything. A lot of it is not so obvious. We've literally been led to believe that FAT is bad for us, it's what makes you fat. Not that carbs and sugars are what cause you to be fat.
A lot of people's bodies just want to be larger than other people's. This isn't about willpower and education, it's about recognizing diversity.
Yes we make it worse with our decisions as a society, but some people are gonna be fatter regardless.
There's diversity in BUILDS of people. Some will be thicker than others but that doesn't mean they're obese. I'm obese and I suffer health effects from it and have been obese most of my life. This entire obesity acceptance thought is backwards. We should get rid of the stigma but it is not healthy.
Yeah I've had health problems from being overweight too.
Shaming me for being overweight never made a difference at all, and probably made things worse.
Am I crazy or did Trump play this song at a rally and then I had a stroke?
I mean, those aren't mutually exclusive
So you're either crazy or had a stroke...
the crazy thing is you could afford both, you spend more to get less, and it's universally popular
it's the most antimemetic idea in American history
They cut cancer research!
Conceptually, I'm not opposed to having a powerful military for defense of your own borders and those of allies. It's a scary world and there are some bad people in positions of power out there.
I am highly opposed to defunding cancer research so we can blow up schools full of small children without any real cause or reason.
Trump wanted to fuck children but he couldn't go there to do it in person so he remotelly had them fucked in bulk.
If you don't think that's important enough to beat cancer research in getting funds then you're one of those people who doesn't want to make America great again.
/s
The world is scary because of the US lol.
Sure, but there is a tendency in any powerful nation to eventually be co-opted by expansionist or corrupt forces that profit from war. Russia comes to mind but they're not the only country with weapons eyeing their neighbors, and we do have (or had) obligations to help allies.
But a peaceful military does not exist. Once you increase spending for it to a relevant portion of the national budget, you need to use it to make the economy happy.
You're right, but again we don't live in an anarchist like state here we don't need to worry about bad actor nations or actors in general. I would love there to be a situation where borders and countries disappear and we come together as a species. That does not meet well with the reality of our situation. Even then, I would still think some defensive force necessary because well, I'm not too optimistic on the galaxy at large.
But there is clearly a reason; deflection from the fact that our president is a pedophile.
Universal healthcare would cost the government an additinal $0.00 because Medicare and Medicaid are stupid expensive already.
America only ever has one healthcare bill. It is the total amount spent on healthcare, including harm done to people who don't seek healthcare because it is too expensive, plus all the costs of people going to the emergency room when they have no other option, plus all the people who go into bankruptcy from medical debt. It's all one total bill, no matter how you spread the math around, and the only question is how much of that money is being wasted on inefficiency and lost to corporate profits. We might as well all keep paying that bill, but figure out ways to reclaim those corporate profits for the people.
The US already spends more per-person than most states with socialized medical care. The difference is that in America that money goes to insurance companies and billionaires sitting at home while in socialized medical schemes it goes to doctors and nurses and for medications and facilities.
The US already spends more per-person than most states with socialized medical care.
The US spends more than twice as much per capita on healthcare than every other nation on Earth. You don't have to water this down with "most".
I think merelly "spends more per-person" is nowhere strong enough to really illustrate how bad things are.
For example, the United States spends more than TWICE per-person in Healthcare than the United Kingdom.
In fact judging by this it spends almost twice as much as the European country which has a 69% higher GDP per-capita - Luxembourg.
And even with such much higher spending levels, based on this healthcare outcomes are actually worse.
Healthcare in the US is world-beating by a large marge in how spectacularly inneficient it is.
this one slaps. it's always difficult to visualize just how much a large amount of money can be and just how readily they burn it on death.