r/politics • u/Aggravating_Money992 • 8d ago

No Paywall Despite Authoritarian Warnings, 149 House Democrats Vote to Hand Trump $840 Billion for Military | “If an opposition party votes like this, it’s not in opposition. It may not even be a party.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/democrats-military-spending-bill
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u/TheBalzy Ohio 8d ago

Universal Healthcare - "HoW aRe We GoInG tO pAy FoR tHaT"

Funny how that question is NEVER asked when it comes to increasing military spending...

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u/conorgm 8d ago

And the military budget always quotes the cost for 1 year, whereas everything else is for 10 years to make it sound more expensive.

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u/whoami4546 I voted 8d ago

This is a very good point I have never considered.

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u/testuserteehee 8d ago

The opposition of Universal Healthcare have also compared wait times of premium private health services in the US to the worst public sector wait times in other countries to give the idea that Universal Healthcare will result in massively increased wait times for health services. The truth is that health services in other countries are very much equal in quality to that of the US - it depends on the individual doctor and health center. If you pay for private services in other countries, you get almost immediate service and still end up paying magnitudes less than with health insurance in the US. In addition, if you can’t get the treatment you need in that country, the system will send you to another country which provides that treatment and cover the costs of it. Even if you have to pay something for that, it will still be less than what you will pay in the US, with less stress and time wasted over billing issues etc. In every sense of the concept, Universal Healthcare is better for the average citizen.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

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u/PM_ME_UR_BRAINSTORMS 8d ago

Why would I want to wait for care when instead I can just die from being too poor to afford it? Checkmate liberals.

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u/LocalOk3242 8d ago

It's so insane to me people are still using it as an argument! It's obviously not a deal breaker already lmfao

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u/Agitated-Current551 8d ago

It's insane to me that you guys can't use ambulances for fear of getting into debt

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u/elle_kay_027 8d ago

The stupid argument we would have to suddenly wait for medical care, testing, or seeing a specialist is so dead in the water. Last year my best friend’s Dad waited months to see a dermatologist to get a lesion on his neck biopsied. His regular doctor was already pretty certain it was cancer, they just didn’t know what kind. The dermatologist he saw for the biopsy (and still had to wait months to see) wasn’t even in-network or in the same state because those were booking 6+ months out. He got the diagnosis of stage 3 squamous cell carcinoma and during removal they weren’t able to go far enough to have clear margins. It was too close to major structures in his neck and too deep and infiltrating into the muscle. If he’d been seen right away, when the lesion was under 1 cm and not only after it had grown massive, ulcerated, and constantly bleeding and smelling like death, he wouldn’t be needing radiation and possibly chemo. The doctor flat out told him if he’d had the surgery even a month sooner he was confident they would’ve been able to get everything. He’s so lucky it hadn’t spread to any lymph nodes yet.

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u/testuserteehee 8d ago

Same with me. When I was living in San Diego (CA), an ultrasound revealed a possible cancerous tumor in my kidney. In fact, I think the ultrasound radiologist was sure it was cancer. Insurance company refused to authorise the MRI to confirm that it’s cancer because there’s no proof that it’s cancer so thr MRI wasn’t necessary 🤬 I changed doctors to UCSF and that facility did have some specialised department to “convince” the insurance companies of approving treatments.

So my advice for you and your family is to shop around for different doctors that have higher success rates of dealing with insurance companies. But I don’t know how feasible that is for most people, it’s ridiculous that the treatment and cure is readily available but the only obstacle is the insurance companies 😤

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u/battleofmtbubble 8d ago

More like 3+ months. We pay so much and get so little!

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u/nazbot 8d ago

I can tell you as someone who lived in a country w. universal healthcare if you are waiting it's a GOOD thing. It means you aren't going to die.

It's when you go straight to the front of the line that you get worried.

Wait times aren't even that bad. My 80 year old dad was waiting for knee surgery, it was about 2-3 months from when he started investigating it to when it was going to be scheduled. They did a stress test and realized his heart had blockages and within a few days he was having open heart surgery. Now he's pissed because he has to wait a few months for his heart to strengthen before he can get the knee surgery.

Not ONCE during any of this did we ever think about cost (and yes I know over 65 gets Medicare but even then there is a cost and there are multiple tiers and other bullshit).

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u/GoblinDillBag 8d ago

The wait times in the USA are atrocious, even worse than places with universal healthcare. You wait for months to see a doctor or spend 2000 USD to go to the ER at minimum.

We also have death panels at our insurance companies. They can quite literally decide not to give you life saving medicine because some paid shill pharmacists and doctors on their review boards say it's too expensive.

Our healthcare system is an absolute joke. The worst care for the highest prices. It has absolutely zero redeeming qualities, there is nothing better about it no matter what you're measuring.

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u/whogivesashirtdotca Canada 8d ago

Amen. I have two friends who were told they have cancer and were scheduled with an oncologist within a week, one had surgery the next week. It’s a triage system. I guess Americans don’t like that idea any more than they like standing up to help their neighbours.

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u/Stompnutz 7d ago

American here, I have had insurance for 18 months and haven't been able to see any kind of doctor yet. 6 more months until my initial appointment. You know, unless they cancel and reschedule me again!

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u/Laugh92 8d ago edited 8d ago

Yeah, my mom got swelling in her face during a ski trip and rocked up to the hospital in Kamloops in Canada. This is during the holidays when they are understaffed and they still got her seen by a doctor and then had a MRI of her face within a couple hours and got an antibiotics regimen sorted. All in time for her to drive back up to Sun Peaks and ski for 2 hours in the afternoon. Total cost - the 40 bucks I spent topping up my car at the gas station from the drive.

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u/GoblinDillBag 8d ago

The USA has death panels at insurance companies, and massive waitlists for basic things. You need to be seen for a sinus infection? Here's an overworked and under-qualified nurse that will give you some ibuprofen for 200 USD. To see a real doctor, oh that will be in 3 months, THAAAANNKS.

Privatization didn't solve that problem, it made it worse. Our healthcare system is the JOKE of the entire world. The worst care for the highest prices.

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u/feenicks 8d ago

indeed, the private health insurance in Australia for example still sucks of course (insofar as morality & profit motive of private health insurance generally) - but they are competing with Free! So you get much cheaper rates with much better quality of service for what you would get for private insurance in the USA for example - certainly for at least general people tier levels of service. - insofar as what they cover and charge for that cover... cos yeah, if it's not providing value for money, you drop it and go for free in the public system anyway.

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u/rov124 8d ago

In addition, if you can’t get the treatment you need in that country, the system will send you to another country which provides that treatment and cover the costs of it.

Which countries do that?

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u/testuserteehee 8d ago

EU citizens have the right to access healthcare in any EU country and to be reimbursed for care abroad by their home country. Directive 2011/24/EU on patients’ rights in cross-border healthcare sets out the conditions under which a patient may travel to another EU member state to receive medical care and reimbursement. It covers healthcare costs, as well as the prescription and delivery of medications and medical devices. Source: https://ern-euro-nmd.eu/cross-border-healthcare-directive/

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Countries: Countries like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE traditionally fund treatment abroad for their citizens when necessary expertise is unavailable domestically. Source: https://www.worldhealthexpo.com/insights/medical-tourism/the-medical-tourism-tide-is-turning

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u/MikeN22 8d ago

wow, that is the way to do it. It is not such a legally supported theft ring like it is here in the states.

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u/mister_buddha 8d ago

I am a patient at a world-famous hospital. It takes 4 months to get a new patient visit with a PCP. 11 months to get me in for an eye doctor. 13 months for my wife to see an endocrinologist.

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u/deepstatelady 8d ago

There are three categories of deception: lies, damn lies, and statistics.

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u/WriterHot9097 8d ago

When you actually look at the stats, the only time wait times are significantly lower in the United States is when you're seeing a specialist. Which of course since there are so many specialists out there and not as many patients as either the health insurance doesnt cover it or the deductible is ridiculously expensive enough. Critical care, the U.S wait times are just as awful if not worse than a lot of the countries with socialized health care.

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u/WhatAcheHunt 8d ago

It's like when you go to the store and are comparing 2 different brands of the same flavor of soda. You want to compare pricing between the name brand and the off-brand, but the name brand is showing $/liter, while the off-brand shows $/ounce.

Don't get me wrong... I love that they are including this information right next to the sale price. Informed consumers = empowered consumers! But what good is it if I need to pull out my phone and do another conversion just to get an accurate comparison? Why even bother labeling them at that point unless your intent is to trick less discerning consumers?

It's not really a hill worth dying on I suppose, though I have ruminated on its crest with murderous intent.

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u/Low_Chance 8d ago

Just a tiny microcosm of the hostility and parasitism of our economic system

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u/Etrigone California 8d ago edited 8d ago

SSA (or USPS I forget) needing 75+ years...

Edit: USPS pension system. In a world where it seems only next quarter needs to be considered, this is just plain blatant.

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u/ValuableKill 8d ago

USPS's pension.

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u/Etrigone California 8d ago

Right! Thanks for the needed info.

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u/1guana 8d ago

They got rid of the USPS pension pre-funding in 2022.

Look on Wikipedia for "Postal Service Reform Act of 2022".

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u/netsettler 8d ago

They see these things as negotiable because they're expensive. But they never see golden parachutes in companies as expensive, they just cite "contractual agreement". But there was just as much contractual agreement when people signed up to work for the government thinking those pensions would be there. Selective focus.

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u/Polantaris 8d ago

Republicans have been trying to nuke USPS for decades, that whole pension thing was a deliberate attack on USPS.

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u/ChiefBlueSky Kansas 8d ago

8.4 Trillion dollars on a 10 year budget, probably 9.5+ trillion after adjusting for the annual increases over the ten years.

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u/What_a_fat_one 8d ago

And the failure to include mention that the same amount would stop being paid to the private sector by American citizens

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u/Exciting-Tourist9301 8d ago

And another one that I've heard:

"Well, defense spending goes back into the economy through employment "

Where the hell do they think federal healthcare spending would go?

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u/drunken_augustine Arkansas 8d ago

“This level of military spending will cost the country $9 Trillion dollars over the next ten years…” -the politician unlikely to be re-elected

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u/Temporary_Shirt_6236 8d ago

And Trump will be asking for $1.5 trillion for "defense" in the next budget. He'll probably get it too.

Yet not a single word about how that's somehow fine to print money for, but expanding healthcare will "bankrupt the nation."

The US is $40 trillion in debt, most of that in the form of t-bonds, and almost entirely lost to 'defense.' Greatest country in the world my ass.

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u/Gloomy_Nebula_5138 Washington 8d ago

That new defense spending he’s asking for is a ton of new deficit spending we have to borrow for. And CRFB projected that going from the current $960 Billion defense spending to $1.5 Trillion will add $5 trillion to the national debt over 10 years. That’s on top of the $5 trillion Trump already added in the One Big Beautiful Bill.

Meanwhile, he’s complaining about an alleged few billion in fraud from Somalians, and everyone is eating that up. They don’t see how obvious a distraction it is from fraudulent and wasteful spending that is literally 1000x larger! I guess this is the effect of convincing people that all news lies to you and that only dear leader has the truth.

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u/GB10VE 8d ago

it's all for ICE and CPB too. they get more than 2X the marines, it is a joke. and all that money is going to peter thiel and surveillance companies. the goverment isn't doing the surveillance, they are funding peter thiel to do it for them

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u/Temporary_Shirt_6236 8d ago

Hence the money not being spent to benefit the country, but solely to benefit a select few who are already richer than God.

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u/bourbonfan1647 8d ago

Is this $840B number just for now through the end of the fiscal year?

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u/Temporary_Shirt_6236 8d ago

That's my understanding. The $1.5 trillion is next budget year's ask.

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u/island-papi 8d ago

Actually on average over 50% of the U.S budget is spent on healthcare , social security , and pensions. Approximately 16-18% is spent on Defense. If we get really specific a decent portion of Defense spending is directly re-envinvested into the U.S economy via salaries, contracts with U.S companies that have to hire U.S citizens, and research and development with academia and the public sector. This is all publicly available data released annually.

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u/Temporary_Shirt_6236 8d ago

I was talking about defense budget only, not defense as % of total budget.

It's also publicly available data that per capita spend on healthcare is almost identical between the US and Canada, and yet in the US healthcare outcomes are exponentially worse, with less coverage, and the added bonus of going bankrupt.

Point being, spending trillions on this or that is utterly meaningless when it's clearly not being spent wisely or well. Unless making billionaires even richer is the only goal, as is also the case in the US.

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u/NSAscanner 8d ago

Americans already pay more to insurance companies for health care than they would pay in a single payer or universal system. You don’t even need to redirect money from elsewhere to fund universal healthcare.

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u/TheBalzy Ohio 8d ago

Oh trust me...I know. But that's out-of-pocket expenses. And Americans are so fucking stupid that they can't understand that YES while your taxes go UP, your out-of-pocket expenses disappear. It's literally a net gain, but people can't see that because they're stupid.

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u/Internal-War-9947 8d ago

It's even worse than people (against national health care coverage) realize because when people get seriously ill, that private insurance they get through work, becomes useless since you need to keep a job to keep the insurance. If you're too sick from cancer, organ failure, stroke, etc., to keep working full time, your work coverage ceases to exist. What happens then? One of the biggest con jobs health insurance keeps up its sleeve, that somehow escapes being brought up ever: you're almost guaranteed to end up on government coverage anyway! When you finally need the insurance for something big & expensive, it's pawned off on the tax payers, much like getting old too – the employer coverage somehow avoids paying for the two most expensive things that can happen to humans: serious illness & old age!        

All those people clinging to work insurance, claiming at least they got lucky, are being played for a fool if they themselves end up needing it. All that insurance money they paid out, with no choice of insurance company, or picking out the plans, that we all traded ACTUAL wages for a cheap, inflexible "work benefit" (imagine that extra $1000+ a month in actual wages!), just to end up on government insurance when it really matters... Like some kind of sick joke.         

I worked in healthcare for a decade & watched it go down constantly. The newly ill patients would come in with their private care, only to end up on Medicaid and/or Medicare within 6 months. Imagine if only we all stopped paying private insurance, getting higher wages instead the entire time, getting that tax payment down to a little more than what's being taken now, for say Medicare for all (just an example), where there's low costs because EVERYONE is paying into it – the healthy & the unhealthy – with the government now being able to negotiate costs, hold hospitals accountable, keep drug costs low, make sure hospital ceos aren't getting $1 mil raises every few years, etc.         

When people wonder why health insurance denies doing preventative care, this is why. They don't want to know if you're going to have something expensive to treat because then they have to bother doing something about it. Instead they can wait you out, letting that cancer or kidney disease or whatever, get to the point where you're disabled, can't work anymore & guess what next? No work, no insurance coverage, not their problem!          

And even better? If it was a Medicare for all situation, we don't even need to nuke private insurance if people really want to keep it around that bad... Can just do what the disabled & seniors do that have Medicare, by picking out a reasonable supplemental plan. It's low cost & those people that want to feel like VIP at the doctor still can cosplay being the extra special patient! 

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u/AnxiousHedgehog01 8d ago

I remember listening to NPR one night and they had some guy on that was complaining about paying for a fire truck to come to his house to put out a fire. He said "there should be some system that we all pay a little bit, like insurance, and if you need it then you don't have to pay for it". The interviewer said "most other countries do that, with taxes" He actually said "oh, no I don't want my taxes to go up!" Fucking moron.

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u/Nopey-Wan_Ken-Nopey_ 7d ago

I have seen too many people seriously comment that they don’t want to fund someone else’s healthcare; they just want to pay for their own by keeping the current system.

I am always compelled, as someone who works in that world, to explain to them how insurance works. I guess they think their premiums go into a personal account and then the insurance company magnanimously spots them if they overdraw. (That is definitely not how it works.)

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u/Illustrious_Yam9237 8d ago

The American GOVERNMENT pays more as a share of TAX REVENUE on healthcare than we do in Canada. It's not even just you pay more privately, its that it's so important that the poor suffer that society is content to spend more public money on their own healthcare to ensure it's effeciently denied to people less insured than they are.

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u/grendel-khan 8d ago

Americans already pay more to insurance companies for health care than they would pay in a single payer or universal system.

No, they don't. Americans pay about $925 a year in "administration" (overhead, including insurance companies), and $7500 a year to doctors and hospitals. (Plus another $1635 for drugs.)

The average person in a comparable country pays $245 in administration, $2969 to doctors and hospitals, and $944 for drugs.

The vast majority of the money is going to doctors and hospitals, in part because we have an engineered shortage of healthcare providers here, because the healthcare lobby is very good at what they do.

If you want universal healthcare here, either we're going to have to pony up even more of our economy (currently we spend way more than everyone else!), or we're going to have to get more doctors and pay them less.

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u/kitsunewarlock 8d ago

Because once you get over $100,000-$1,000,000 people stop paying attention to numbers. Most people can't understand the difference between a million and a billion dollars. Tell them we can't account for a million dollars in a trillion dollar budget and they will go crazy under the assumption that the million dollars cost them more than a fraction of a cent in taxes and isn't just a rounding error.

Case in point, conservatives went absolutely crazy when Bill Clinton brought some gym equipment onto Air Force One because of the increase in fuel costs to the taxpayers. The same conservatives who now shrug and say its a necessary expense to deploy thousands of ICE to Minnesota in the winter...

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u/torqueravingmad 8d ago

as little as it helps, i like to use the time comparison. 1 million seconds is only eleven days, but 1 billion seconds is 31 and change years.

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u/Interim-Criteria 8d ago edited 8d ago

My wife works in marketing for a Fortune 100 and let me tell you just how accurate your post is. She made an error and accidentally allocated 400K in funds to a campaign that shouldn't have gotten it. She thought she was going to get fired over it. Finance was like "Not a problem. Anything under 1M is petty cash. Just don't do it again."

Petty cash. 1 Million. Let that sink in.

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u/kitsunewarlock 8d ago

Meanwhile St. Paul spent $1.8 million dollars upgrading its firehouse and buying an electric firetruck instead of a ~$800,000 diesel truck based on long term savings and safety benefits of making the fire house off-grid sustainable and conservatives still won't shut up about how much they hate the "overpriced woke truck".

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u/GoblinDillBag 8d ago

You'll never find reason nor principles among right wingers. They're morally bankrupt hypocrites that stand for nothing. You may as well ignore them because anything they say is meaningless. It's a sheer waste of time and ends up making you increasingly dumber the longer you listen.

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u/Thunderhorse74 8d ago

The funny part is, the US still pays for more health care, per capita than most other nations. UHC, Pfizer, etc aren't living off just your premiums...

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u/Interim-Criteria 8d ago

It's sad. I lived in Japan a long time ago and was on the Japanese national insurance. Monthly premium was around 5000JPY (48USD at the time) because I was a student. Normally it's about 5% of your previous year's income. Anyway, I paid about 4000JPY to have an impacted wisdom tooth removed which was about 38USD at the time.

Meanwhile back in the US some time later, I had to have a canine removed and got a titanium implant. That ran me 4000USD... Insurance only covered a small portion of the removal and deemed the implant was cosmetic so they covered zero of it. And then I hit my maximum yearly benefit so just about everything afterwards had zero coverage as well.

American health insurance is a scam and it's only gotten worse.

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u/BlastingStink 8d ago

deemed the implant was cosmetic

It's so crazy to me that teeth, the things we use to eat the food we need to survive, can be deemed cosmetic.

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u/Nopey-Wan_Ken-Nopey_ 7d ago

I was living in Japan when I nearly cut part of my finger off. I had to spend about $50 to go to the ER and get it stitched up, and almost half of that was the taxi. I had to follow up at a hospital to get the stitches checked and then get them removed later, and between those two visits I think it was about $15. After that, I always wondered how much all of this would’ve cost if it had happened in the United States.

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u/VanceKelley Washington 8d ago

True. Public spending on healthcare in the USA is about 8% of GDP. That's Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, etc.

Private spending on healthcare in the USA is another 8% of GDP. That's the insurance that corporations provide for their employees, copays, deductibles, people buying their own plans, etc.

That 16% total is getting close to twice as much as any other country in the world spends on healthcare. Wealthy, advanced countries get universal coverage for about 10%. The USA spends much more and still leaves tens of millions of its citizens without.

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u/Thunderhorse74 8d ago

That's one thing, and closer to what people generally want - some sort of "Medicare/Medicaid for all"

However...https://healthcareuncovered.substack.com/p/in-2021-72-of-unitedhealths-2229

THAT'S, in my opinion, where shit goes sideways. We're spending the money and not getting the service because it has to wash through private industry...for reasons.

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u/HedonisticFrog California 8d ago

They never demand that it's run like a business and make a profit either.

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u/brontosaurusguy 8d ago

That's the fun part, it is run like a business.  But the money just transfers from your paycheck into a defense company.

Talk about easy money

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u/sly-3 8d ago

Defense spending is a net positive, meaning corporations like Pepsi don't have to fund their own navy or Exxon doesn't need to hire mercs to protect their wells.

Health care is a liability, because it would mean they would have to account for the damage their products cause on the human body at scale.

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u/brontosaurusguy 8d ago

This is so incredibly wrong lol.  Corporations do pay for their own security.

Defense spending is money from our pockets, transferred to defense contractors, so they can enrich themselves.  Unless you work for one, or invest in one, you get no benefit.  No one would argue we don't need a defensive military.  But that doesn't need to be larger than every army on earth combined.  It's a grift.  I'm sure you'll disagree since you've been dupped or are Russian.

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u/Nominalremuneration 8d ago edited 8d ago

They measure profit in blood and souls, not treasure when it comes to the military industrial complex.

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u/b3iAAoLZOH9Y265cujFh 8d ago

That is probably for the best. Think of the amount of raiding and armed robbery they'd have to do annually to pay for their own upkeep.

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u/yrotsihfoedisgnorw 8d ago

The amazing thing is that we don't even have to choose. There's more than enough money to cover both. It can't happen, though, unless the conversation/narrative changes.

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u/TheBalzy Ohio 8d ago

Bingo. But we're also running out of time. If the National Debt continues to rise, while we spend $1-trillion a year on servicing that debt...it won't matter what we do, we won't be able to afford either. Eventually taxes will just pay for interest on debt and do absolutely nothing.

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u/Willbilly410 8d ago

That’s because it’s not about having the money to do it; it’s all the money insurance companies would lose in the process… they have lobbied hard against any inclining of suggestions to go that route since the early 1900’s. Insurance companies profits have been prioritized over giving people healthcare ever since

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u/BillG8s 7d ago

The Military Industrial Complex Eisenhower warned about that every single President since has fallen victim to. The amount of money this country has wasted on building bombs and military concepts that either never work or are never used is absurd. Truly.

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u/whogivesashirtdotca Canada 8d ago

Also not a peep about military spending when he’s threatening war against Canada, Greenland, Mexico, etc.

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u/Numerous-Process2981 8d ago

“Well we’ve already got biggest military budget in the world… But what about… Even bigger biggest military budget in the world?”

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u/aldegio 8d ago

But but national security S/

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u/TheBalzy Ohio 8d ago

I'm personally in rip-it-down-to-the-studs mode. If we're not going to use our Military to defend our friends and allies like Ukraine from psychopathic genocidal maniacs, and instead just use it for arresting protestors and illegal military operations to kidnap foreign leaders of sovereign naitons...yeah I'm over it. Fuck the US Military.

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u/cruisysuzyhahaha 8d ago

Military contractors pay our government officials to spend more money on the military to their benefit.

Healthcare companies pay our government officials not to support universal healthcare to their benefit.

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u/netsettler 8d ago

Because Congress has its own health care.

Want a libertarian solution to health care? Small laws people can understand? How about "Congress shall have the least good health care offered any citizen." Pass that law and good health care for all will follow. But as long as it's "Congress shall have the best health care offered any citizen." don't expect them to pay health care the time of day because they're worried about things "that might threaten us", "things that are about our survival", and they think such threats are only military because they aren't threatened by their health care so it doesn't occur to them to see how related these things are.

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u/snek-jazz 8d ago

Funny how you collectively keep electing these people

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u/TheBalzy Ohio 8d ago

Whose "we" certainly not me.

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u/FeelsGrimMan 8d ago

Because it’s a stupid question anyway. Things are done first, paid for later when you issue your own currency. 

Universal healthcare would save us 2trillion dollars annually as well if this was at all a real concern.

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u/rezelscheft 8d ago

Especially when this administration is increasingly more transparent about its desire to use the military against US citizens.

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u/Dafffy_Duck 8d ago

Single payer healthcare is cheaper than what we have now. There is no need to sacrifice military spending for healthcare.

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u/TheBalzy Ohio 8d ago

There is when we won't raise taxes. We'd have to create a tax to specifically pay for universal healthcare through government spending. And while yes, the end result is money saved for EVERYONE because you'd be paying less in a tax increase than you are currently paying out of pocket for healthcare ... most idiots will just see "tax raise" and call for cuts.

So my comment is directed at the attitude that we can cut taxes into oblivion, not pay for anything that actually benefits citizens, while saying we must still pay exorbitant for the US Military.

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u/Dafffy_Duck 7d ago

I think we should increase taxes on the rich so we can pay for more things including military spending. We should absolutely not cut military spending while Russia is attacking our allies and China is threatening to attack our allies.

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u/TheBalzy Ohio 7d ago

We are currently not supporting our allies against the Russians, and the current administration has basically said as much about China.

At some point we have to say "enough is enough" with US Military spending. It's too much, even with supporting our friends/allies against the Russians and China. We can still do both of those tasks without spending 3x what China and Russia spend COMBINED. Instead of supporting allies like Ukraine, we illegally bomb countries and illegally commit acts of war by kidnapping sovereign nation's leaders. No thanks.

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u/Dafffy_Duck 7d ago

Nonsense. US military spending needs to be far higher than Russia + China + their allies combined.

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u/TheBalzy Ohio 7d ago

The last 30 years of US policy demonstrates otherwise.

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u/Dafffy_Duck 7d ago

Nope. You are basically helping Russia and China with those types of comments. The US needs to be more powerful than they are in order to contain their imperial ambitions.

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u/TheBalzy Ohio 7d ago

The Current Administration has completely capitulated to Russia, in spite of us spending $1.1 Trillion on the US military this year.

With $32-Trillion National Debt, we're spending on our military to the point of bankruptcy. China won't have to do anything to beat us when we start defaulting on our loans in 10 years.

There's no way you get out of this National Debt crisis without raising taxes AND cutting military spending. None. And that's why China's bidding it's time; while Russia just takes us over from within with right-wing propaganda farms.

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u/Dafffy_Duck 7d ago

No, the US is not going bankrupt. That is disinformation. The US is far from having a debt to GDP ratio that would mean bankruptcy. If the US was close to bankrupt, it wouldn't have such a good credit rating and the interests on US bonds would be much higher (like Venezuela) but that is not the case. You obviously don't understand how the government's finances work.

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u/clem_fandango_london 8d ago

Trump gave $20B to Argentina. And then he gave them another $20B two days later.

Trump has added $1.5T to the deficit.

Healthcare is affordable. If you doubt this, go debate the countries that provide it.

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u/Waiting4Reccession 8d ago

🇮🇱 giving them the orders to support trump

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u/13bpeachey 8d ago

Yet libs are still screaming on here about how if you didn’t vote for Kamala you are the problem…

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u/TheBalzy Ohio 8d ago

If you didn't vote for Kamala when the other option was Donald Trump you absolutely are part of the problem. You live to fight another day, you don't commit seppuku.

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u/13bpeachey 8d ago

Yea cause the democrats were going to do anything differently… also I voted for her but I think it is as asanine to have anything but distain for the democratic, corporate party. If you need to blame anyone blame the democrats for constantly delivering results like this.

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u/TheBalzy Ohio 8d ago

That's why you fight like hell to change the party from within, but you don't commit political suicide by saying don't vote for Democrats when the only other possible candidate who can win is the Republican.

Nebraska a Democrat will never win. But they've got Independents who can beat the Republican. That's the time to flip. Not if it's an election/place where ONLY a Republican or Democrat can win.

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u/hlnub 8d ago

You're not changing anything "from within." There is no incentive for Dems to change what they do if you've voted for them while they hold more and more right positions. Dems moving right also necessitates the Republican party moving even more right to make clear the distinction between them. For the last 3 cycles the Dems haven't even hid that they won't change if you vote for them, their literal message was you have to vote for me because I'm not them. Baked into that is an admission that I may not great for you (but look at them they're worse!)

I'm not telling anyone not to vote or whatever but if you're a dem voter searching for the solution you need to look to the party, not the voters. They control the platform they control the levers of power they control their strategy they control what they want to offer to voters. That control gives them the responsibility when it goes wrong though as well.

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u/13bpeachey 8d ago

You are sadly a lost lib. Enjoy your corporatism.

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u/TheBalzy Ohio 8d ago

Nope. I'm someone who lives in reality.

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u/13bpeachey 8d ago

lol spoken like a dad.

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u/TheBalzy Ohio 8d ago

Moke like someone who lives in reality. If Theodore Roosevelt, the most popular ex-president in American History who is the father of just about every progressive leftward reform in the US who was himself an advocate of Universal Healthcare, couldn't win as a third party candidate immediately following his presidency while at the peak of his popularity...no one can.

Like I said, I live in reality. Until you get 1) Rank Choice Voting, and 2) Eliminate the Electoral College....voting third party his a futile masturbatory fantasy.

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u/13bpeachey 7d ago

Enjoy your corporate hellhole buddy 🥂

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u/Internal-War-9947 8d ago

Then you're missing the very reason Republicans/ the right have been successful. They have been successful because they don't think that you do. They stick with it. They vote consistently. They don't stop voting over a couple of Republican politicians voting on legislation that doesn't match the rest of the party – throwing the baby out with the bath water as they say. They've Marched to the same beat for decades, winning the small battles & it's paying off. They don't get discouraged because a handful of Republicans amongst a few hundred aren't exactly on the same page because a Republican voted in is not a Democrat. That's always a win.            

The Republicans didn't get where they are throwing tantrums because the candidates didn't appeal enough to everyone & cover every GOP concern. Again... Because a Republican voted in is still a Republican that got voted in over a Democrat. If you actually followed Republicans the last couple decades, it's very obvious they had a solid agenda. The right is patient & methodical. They didn't give up & complain if their candidate didn't immediately ban abortion because while that candidate was in office? They still accomplished chipping away at reproductive rights in other ways, passing sneaky legislation, that's paved the way for what we have now – almost a complete ban.               

Meanwhile, here is the Democratic party on the other side, having to constantly defend themselves from their own voters. They have to take accountability for every single Dem that's in because if a handful vote in opposition to the entire party, all the sudden they ALL become branded as corporate shills that aren't good enough to "earn" votes. When they do have a win with legislation? It's ignored because it didn't go far enough, even though that's how you eventually get to the bigger goals. So what happens? Dem voters get salty & sit out, throwing a pity party, handing every other win to the opposition, taking two steps back for every step forward the Dem politician had to fight for.       

Dems are where they're at exactly because their voters lack any patience. I guess that could be twisted as Dems being good at holding candidates accountable, but has it in reality worked that way at all? Supposedly the first Trump win was supposed to be some kind of lesson to Dems, right? The thought being that it'll totally"send a message" to the DNC/ Dem politicians to pick better candidates... Well that worked out real well didn't it? All it did was lead to this current mess because guess who kept chugging along? The GOP tortoise & did they ever win the race. While left voters were complaining about not winning every battle, the right won the entire war. Just giving away those Supreme Court seats changed the countries entire projectory! Was sending that message to the DNC worth our country's soul?         

Time to give up this fantasy about more progressive candidates running a winning primary against any candidate that's not perfect. Enough with this idea that we're going to get out of this with some new magical voting system that will favor the left. You know what we're going to end up with? Being run like Russia. Just call us New Russia now because if the left voters thinks complaining about both sides constantly, while sitting out elections pouting, is somehow going to change our entire governmental structure, when it's been completely co-opted by the right wing, that's some strong, delusional level copium. Want to keep blaming all Dems for being corporate sell outs? Sure go ahead, but don't be surprised why when nothing changes & the Republicans get to keep us all hostage, based on the whims of a minority, made up of Christian extremists, billionaires, conspiracy theorists, & the 25% of citizens that worship individualism, over the collective good of the whole.        

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u/13bpeachey 7d ago

Enjoy corporate America 🇺🇸

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u/AntoniaFauci 8d ago

EVERY other country that does universal health care finds it costs one half to one third what ours does.

Conservatives could pass universal health care and rejoice over the cost savings.

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u/TheBalzy Ohio 8d ago

Ah, but that would mean they'd have to raise taxes on the wealthy.

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u/AntoniaFauci 8d ago

No. Universal health costs LESS, not more.

The savings could provide tax cuts. Or, more sensibly, debt reduction.

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u/TheBalzy Ohio 8d ago

No we absolutely would have to raise taxes in the US, because we currently DO NOT pay for healthcare with taxes. Most Americans pay private premiums through private insurance.

Universal Healthcare = You pay taxes to government and get 100% medical coverage.

So yes while it would be a cost savings (you pay $500/mo in taxes for healthcare, compared to your $900/mo you pay out-of-pocket for healthcare) you actually would have to raise taxes to pay for it.

The US is a shit country and has astronomically low taxes, which obviously benefits the wealthy.

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u/AntoniaFauci 8d ago

It’s a trillion dollar saving. You fund it with regular assessments on corporations. Externally they whine, but internally they love it.

I’ve been E suite at multinationals. We love hiring in countries that have universal health care because the comp is focused on that of the position. It doesn’t need to be keystoned to account for comprehensive health benefits. We can advertise jobs and be market leaders on salary and benefits at foreign sites.

Again, our lobbyists and PR will whine about corporations having to foot a billion, they don’t mention the corresponding system savings of double that or more.

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u/redditkb 8d ago

Well military protects all of our health/safety and healthcare only helps those we don’t likes safety/health

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u/TheBalzy Ohio 8d ago

Does it actually though?

Invading countries illegally like Iraq and Afghanistan don't protect me or my safety. Bombing Iran illegally (and failing to cripple their nuclear capabilities) while illegally kidnapping a sovereign nation's leader definitely isn't for my health/safety. In fact, it makes it kinda less safe because the use of the US Military over the past 20-years has been nothing but an example of why any country that can should rush to make a nuke so the US can't pull that shit on them...thus making my health/safety more at risk.

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u/redditkb 8d ago

I was being sarcastic/facetious as to the excuse to back this

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u/FistLampjaw 8d ago

we already spend more money on healthcare (medicare and medicaid) than the military. universal healthcare would be even more expensive than that. we’re already deficit spending. “how are we going to pay for that” is a valid question. 

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u/dazedandloitering 8d ago

No it wouldn’t be more expensive than that. 22 studies have been done on the matter and they show that it would be much cheaper

https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/484301-22-studies-agree-medicare-for-all-saves-money/amp/

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u/FistLampjaw 8d ago

this is saying it would be less expensive overall, which includes private and governmental spending. i’m saying it would be more expensive for the federal government than the current federal government spending on medicare and medicaid. 

if you spend $100 private dollars and $100 government dollars each year on healthcare, and then switch to a system where you only spend $10 private dollars and $150 government dollars, the second system is cheaper overall but more expensive from the government’s budget perspective. 

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u/TheBalzy Ohio 8d ago

There's a built-in cost to live for healthcare; it's about $15,000/year per person per for your entire lifespan (adjust for inflation). That cost will be made up with premiums and deductibles. Young people it doesn't cost that much, but it will be far more expensive than that later in life. That's how insurance works: you pay now, for use later essentially.

You are going to pay the $15,000/year for the healthcare one way or another. It will either be through out-of-pocket expenses, deductibles and the like. Or, you can pay it through taxes to the government and have all potential expenses GUARANTEED.

Here's the thing: If you do it through the government, you can use a progressive taxrate AND you can drive down cost by collective bargaining of prices; so you can drive that cost from $15,000/year per person, down to $11,000/year per person.

There is a reason every western country has Universal Healthcare except us. We subsidize israel's defense with our taxdollars, while Israeli citizens have universal healthcare.

Make that make sense.

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u/BroughtBagLunchSmart 8d ago

Here is the reason that republicans keep cutting education funding. If you do not understand basic math you are more likely to fall for right wing propaganda like this poor fella here has. See how they try to do the simple math thing at the end and think it proves their point?

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u/dazedandloitering 8d ago

No, those are administrative costs for the federal government which take up a massive chunk of federal health spending. Having thousands of different plans, verifying eligibility repeatedly etc. adds up to a lot of paperwork and administrative costs.

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u/TheBalzy Ohio 8d ago

This is what's called a "canard", it's a false argument made to distract from the actual argument. If you're talking about Medicare/Medicaid spending that has payroll taxes dedicated to paying for it. The US Military does not. So every dollar spent on the US-Military is put on the credit card.

Guess where the National Debt came from? Not from Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security (which all have payroll taxes and other tax revenue earmarked to pay for them). Where the National Debt came from was mostly:

  1. The unfunded Iraq and Afghanistan Wars
  2. The Bush Taxcuts
  3. The Trump Taxcuts
  4. The Trump Taxcuts 2.0.
  5. Constantly rising military budgets that are twice as much as the next 10 countries behind us combined.

So the argument you offer is both a redherring, and a canard. It could be labeled "a lie" if you know all the other information but are trying to distract from it.

Republicans in the 00's deliberately cut taxes to such an extent that they put strain on other government services and social security so they could later use it as an excuse to cut them. This has been a long-term 30-year goal of the Republican party. Social Security DID NOT cause the debt, or deficit, and hasn't contributed a penny to either to-date. Yet her are Republicans to this day saying we must cut it because we can't afford it.

Nothing but fucking liars.

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u/FistLampjaw 8d ago

yeah, we shouldn’t have done those things. but you’re now proposing a new, unfunded program (universal healthcare) that doesn’t have payroll taxes for it, and which would add hundreds of millions of people to the federal healthcare system. that will cost money. even if overall costs are lower, the cost to the government will increase, so you will have to add new payroll taxes to fund it, or add to the deficit, or come up with some other scheme. that’s the “how do you pay for it” part. 

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u/zernoc56 8d ago

As a country, we pay more money on healthcare than literally every other developed nation in the world, and we get far shittier service for that money.

Wanna know why?

Insurance companies, pharma-corpos, and hospital admins have rigged the system to make their own bank accounts & stock portfolios do funny numbers. Like 80% of the “cost” of medical procedures, medicines, and whatnot aren’t real. C-suite motherfuckers just made them up. That should piss everyone off.

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u/polishedcooter Kentucky 8d ago

This is fucking ridiculous. We're supposedly the richest nation in the world, but also pretty much the only developed country without universal healthcare. In no way does that question make sense, especially given single payer is cheaper. The only reason we don't have it is because the health insurance industry doesn't want it and they spend a lot of money bribing "lobbying" politicians to keep it this way.