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> When it comes to public funding for public goods we tend to worry about some poor person getting something they don’t deserve. The go it alone I’ve got mine,
by rukittenme 8y ago
> When it comes to public funding for public goods we tend to worry about some poor person getting something they don’t deserve. The go it alone I’ve got mine, fuck you attitude is unhealthy.
1/3 of our GDP goes to "the village". We spend trillions every year on the things you want most. Education, healthcare, environmental protections. You name it; we spend money on it!
70 million people use medicaid. 44 million people use medicare. 22 million veterans eligible for the VA. 22 million government employees who receive healthcare benefits paid for by the state.
We are drowning in the healthcare spending you pretend doesn't exist.
- Daishiman 8y agoYou're not drowning. You're wasting spending on things that don't matter, like privately funded education and privately funded health care. The solutions already exist and they're out there. Lowering spending just for the sake of it is not one of them.
- sykh 8y agoOur spending on healthcare is grossly and immorally inefficient. A change is needed. One reason for the ineffiency is that public welfare is subordinate to special interests. All universal healthcare systems in the world are cheaper on a per capita basis than the American system. A change is needed. I’m not advocating for more money. I’m advocating for a change in perspective by our leaders.
- fastball 8y agoJust because something has worked for other countries does not mean it will work for the US.
- sykh 8y agoNever said otherwise. I made the statement in response to the view that government run necessarily means inefficient. Clearly the converse is true. There are lots of examples.
- beagle3 8y agoThat's true, but since there is an example (tens of them, actually) where it does work well, then the prior should be that it could and should work in the US, and if one thinks it wouldn't work in the US, it should come with an explanation.
- fastball 8y agoThe explanation is that the US is huge and UK/Germany/Sweden/whoever is not. Efficiency doesn't scale proportionally to size, unfortunately.
- sykh 8y agoThat, even if true, does not support your argument. You need to show that the inefficiency in a universal care system in a country as large as the U.S is greater than the current system that we have. The evidence is that this is not true.
- fastball 8y agoI don't need to show that, as I am not the one advocating a fundamental restructuring of the status quo. You need to show that the policies implemented in other countries will continue to work efficiently at the scale of the US, as you are the one advocating that course of action. "This policy worked well in [some place that is not the US]" just isn't good enough.
- beagle3 8y agoThis claim, taken ad absurdum, is equivalent to “you can never conclude anything from prior examples because conditions are different”. And you have, in fact, gone ad absurdum.
- fastball 8y agoYou can't definitively conclude anything about example B from the results of example A if the two examples are different. That's not what I'm saying though. All I'm asking is for you to show me how you will mitigate the problems that will crop up when you try to implement a similar system to the UKs at the scale of the US, because the US has 5x the population of the UK. That's not a negligible difference in scale, and if this can't be shown at all, that is a problem.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Andre_Wanglin 8y ago>Our spending on healthcare is grossly and immorally inefficient. Yes, because it goes to treat chronic preventable (voluntary) conditions and to keep rich old people alive for a few hours or days longer. The way to handle those freeloading on the system is to abolish the system, not increase its scope.
- sykh 8y agoI see that in the parable of the farm workers you would be the one hired at the beginning of the day.