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It receives relatively little attention now, but in terms of sheer numbers the cuts to the USAID program have had and will continue to have the largest death to

It receives relatively little attention now, but in terms of sheer numbers the cuts to the USAID program have had and will continue to have the largest death toll of anything this administration does. I'm sure the economic suicide will have its victims, and who knows how many have died in detention facilities, but it would be damn-near impossible to match up the the loss of human life seen in poor countries without access to the basic supplies and medical care that USAID delivered.

cyberjerkXX 1y ago
The US is not responsible for fixing every world issue. Just because they've helped in the past doesn't make them morally responsible for every current and future crisis.
- lanstin 1y ago
  No but keeping Ebola from becoming a world wide problem is in the US interests and USAID was a very cheap way to advance that goal. We funded USAID out of decency (and to gain a reputation for decency, which is worth a lot of money) sure, but also to protect ourselves.
  - cyberjerkXX 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - bonsai_spool 1y ago
      > Sounds like a job for the WHO - maybe the UN can do it's job. Ah, the WHO that has recently lost money from its largest contributor, a contributor that unexpectedly stopped its contributions without explanation.
      - BJones12 1y ago
        Good thing it's called the World Health Organization and not the American Health Organization, that way the 95.9% of the world that is not America can contribute to it.
        bonsai_spool 1y ago
        > Good thing it's called the World Health Organization and not the American Health Organization, that way the 95.9% of the world that is not America can contribute to it. First, imagine that your boss/largest customer decided, on a whim, to reduce your remuneration by half on the first of January. Where are you making up that money if there's nowhere else in the world that you can immediately turn to? Anyway, other nations are spending more. The World Health Organization and UN are just politically convenient names. These organizations were created by a victorious America to project power, like the takeover of UK military bases and exportation of US culture in the Marshall Plan. How reprehensible that we throw away such power without receiving anything in exchange. [1] Helpful example - we initially blocked penicillin production in other countries, despite having joined WHO, in furtherance of American interests https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-cold-wars-lasting-effect-on-todays-antibiotic-resistance-2159 https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-cold-wars-lasting-effec...
      - cyberjerkXX 1y ago
        There you go again -you want the US government to solve the world's problems. Also, you're passively calling the WHO an infective organization because it can't handle this outbreak on its own without US funding. That implies it's a useless organization and therefore the US was justified removing funding. Maybe you should be advocating for the 194 member states of the WHO to contribute more so the world doesn't need to rely on the political winds of the US election cycle.
        bonsai_spool 1y ago
        I replied to one of your sibling posts. You can re-interpret these facts as you wish, but the WHO was working in December and radically transformed in February. I think that indicates inefficacy and poor insight, but not in the WHO.
        mindslight 1y ago
        > the US government to solve the world's problems It's called leading. You've voluntarily thrown in the towel on US leadership. Good job.
  - gottorf 1y ago
    > (and to gain a reputation for decency, which is worth a lot of money) And how is America's reputation for decency doing these days, a mere year into cutting some of this funding?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- atomicnumber3 1y ago
  That which you did not do for the least of these, you also did not do for me.
  - blargthorwars 1y ago
    It's easy to demand that other people be generous with their resources.
    - bonsai_spool 1y ago
      >> That which you did not do for the least of these, you also did not do for me. > It's easy to demand that other people be generous with their resources. This is a reference to the Bible, a sentence that Jesus delivered.
  - gottorf 1y ago
    I'm not a highly religious person so I may well be wrong about this, but my understanding of Christian principles (as you referenced in your Bible quote) is that you, the individual, should do these kind things to other individuals personally; and in that act of doing so personally, you become closer to God. What we have instead is that taxes are collected by an entity with the monopoly on violence (and of course, it's understood that the people making more than you are not paying their "fair share") whether you like it or not, spent by people who generally have boundless disdain for the very people who pay those taxes, on people and causes on the other side of the planet. There's no connection between people, or between people and God, in this scenario.
    - bonsai_spool 1y ago
      > I'm not a highly religious person so I may well be wrong about this, but my understanding of Christian principles (as you referenced in your Bible quote) is that you, the individual, should do these kind things to other individuals personally; and in that act of doing so personally, you become closer to God. Why not read the verse and see that this refers to collections of people? The source material is readily available, no reason to speculate. https://biblehub.com/nkjv/matthew/25.htm https://biblehub.com/nkjv/matthew/25.htm
- bonsai_spool 1y ago
  >> It receives relatively little attention now, but in terms of sheer numbers the cuts to the USAID program have had and will continue to have the largest death toll of anything this administration does. > The US is not responsible for fixing every world issue. Just because they've helped in the past doesn't make them morally responsible for every current and future crisis. Your answer doesn't quite respond to the GP but instead feels like an expression of political opinion. From a moral stance, the action of stopping something seems quite distinct from a position in which the thing had never occurred.
- pwarner 1y ago
  I think helping control ebola pays a few dividends for the US. It was not completely selfless.
- kerningije 1y ago
  No dollar was ever spent by the US government outside of the US if not in self interest. Failing to see these cuts as sabotaging US interests is very, very naïve.
- JoeAltmaier 1y ago
  It's simple self-interest. Sure, sit on your money and smile while your neighbors die of Ebola. It won't happen here? Sure it could. When the chumps in DC tear down the infrastructure that managed things like this, then we become massively vulnerable.
frickinLasers 1y ago
> who knows how many have died in detention facilities If you're talking about ICE, it's officially 15 so far this year. [0] While this outbreak is bad for DR Congo, I wonder whether they will be able to contain it within their borders without adequate support. [0] https://www.borderreport.com/hot-topics/border-report-live/border-report-live-deaths-of-migrants-in-ice-on-the-rise-data-shows/ https://www.borderreport.com/hot-topics/border-report-live/b...
- smallerize 1y ago
  That doesn't count any of the 1,800 missing from Florida's recently-closed detention center.
  - frickinLasers 1y ago
    I hope you're not implying they're already digging mass graves. Some are unaccounted for--they're probably in Guatemala or something. Some will die. But I don't see the gas chambers being built for, like, another six months at least.
    - smallerize 1y ago
      I don't think they're all dead, but with no accounting, we don't know how many.
harmmonica 1y ago
If you mean short term impacts that may be true, but I wonder if the medicaid, aca and likely medicare cuts will have material impacts on mortality. It will not be as easy to attribute, and therefore it’ll be hard to quantify (you might say that’s “convenient”), but the number of people impacted will be well into the tens of millions.
- bonsai_spool 1y ago
  > if you mean short term impacts that may be true, but I wonder if the medicaid, aca and likely medicare cuts will have material impacts on mortality. It will not be as easy to attribute, and therefore it’ll be hard to quantify (you might say that’s “convenient”), but the number of people impacted will be well into the tens of millions. I think these can't possible be commensurate - just consider how many more HIV cases there will be without US funding for overseas HIV prevention.
  - harmmonica 1y ago
    I’m not so sure. 630,000 total HIV deaths annually. What percent are impacted by USAID and then how much growth in HIV deaths without USAID? My tens of millions comment is the people whose health care will potentially be impacted short term (medicaid and aca changes; Medicaid is currently 70 million people. ACA is 24 million) plus potential aggressive efforts to move medicare people to medicare advantage and you have another 68 million potentially exposed (that number isn’t actually that large today because a majority of those people will likely pass before the medicare changes have a negative impact, but over time, as people enter the system with worse coverage, the deaths will climb). Please understand I’m not saying I’m right about this but just that the vast number of people impacted by the admin’s policies re domestic health care makes me think it could be greater than USAID. edit: grammar and spelling
    - bonsai_spool 1y ago
      I am very genuinely interpreting all of this and I recognize you are just reviewing the data. HIV deaths are a lagging indicator, so any effect of today's policy will be delayed - as a general matter. But HIV in newborns will lead to death within a year if untreated, and adults with untreated HIV/AIDS will die from other communicable disease sooner than if they were treated. Since US hospitals public obligation in the US to treat people who are gravely ill, we're 'only' going to see a marked increase in deaths attributable to chronic disease, and I don't think the Medicaid cuts will survive in their current state. But it's true I don't have numbers on this and won't have a chance to get them this morning. Please share if you have a sense of comparative DALY/QALYs lost through USAID funding cuts vs Medicaid changes.

cyberjerkXX 1y ago

The US is not responsible for fixing every world issue. Just because they've helped in the past doesn't make them morally responsible for every current and future crisis.

lanstin 1y ago
No but keeping Ebola from becoming a world wide problem is in the US interests and USAID was a very cheap way to advance that goal. We funded USAID out of decency (and to gain a reputation for decency, which is worth a lot of money) sure, but also to protect ourselves.
- cyberjerkXX 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - bonsai_spool 1y ago
    > Sounds like a job for the WHO - maybe the UN can do it's job. Ah, the WHO that has recently lost money from its largest contributor, a contributor that unexpectedly stopped its contributions without explanation.
    - BJones12 1y ago
      Good thing it's called the World Health Organization and not the American Health Organization, that way the 95.9% of the world that is not America can contribute to it.
      - bonsai_spool 1y ago
        > Good thing it's called the World Health Organization and not the American Health Organization, that way the 95.9% of the world that is not America can contribute to it. First, imagine that your boss/largest customer decided, on a whim, to reduce your remuneration by half on the first of January. Where are you making up that money if there's nowhere else in the world that you can immediately turn to? Anyway, other nations are spending more. The World Health Organization and UN are just politically convenient names. These organizations were created by a victorious America to project power, like the takeover of UK military bases and exportation of US culture in the Marshall Plan. How reprehensible that we throw away such power without receiving anything in exchange. [1] Helpful example - we initially blocked penicillin production in other countries, despite having joined WHO, in furtherance of American interests https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-cold-wars-lasting-effect-on-todays-antibiotic-resistance-2159 https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-cold-wars-lasting-effec...
    - cyberjerkXX 1y ago
      There you go again -you want the US government to solve the world's problems. Also, you're passively calling the WHO an infective organization because it can't handle this outbreak on its own without US funding. That implies it's a useless organization and therefore the US was justified removing funding. Maybe you should be advocating for the 194 member states of the WHO to contribute more so the world doesn't need to rely on the political winds of the US election cycle.
      - bonsai_spool 1y ago
        I replied to one of your sibling posts. You can re-interpret these facts as you wish, but the WHO was working in December and radically transformed in February. I think that indicates inefficacy and poor insight, but not in the WHO.
      - mindslight 1y ago
        > the US government to solve the world's problems It's called leading. You've voluntarily thrown in the towel on US leadership. Good job.
- gottorf 1y ago
  > (and to gain a reputation for decency, which is worth a lot of money) And how is America's reputation for decency doing these days, a mere year into cutting some of this funding?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
atomicnumber3 1y ago
That which you did not do for the least of these, you also did not do for me.
- blargthorwars 1y ago
  It's easy to demand that other people be generous with their resources.
  - bonsai_spool 1y ago
    >> That which you did not do for the least of these, you also did not do for me. > It's easy to demand that other people be generous with their resources. This is a reference to the Bible, a sentence that Jesus delivered.
- gottorf 1y ago
  I'm not a highly religious person so I may well be wrong about this, but my understanding of Christian principles (as you referenced in your Bible quote) is that you, the individual, should do these kind things to other individuals personally; and in that act of doing so personally, you become closer to God. What we have instead is that taxes are collected by an entity with the monopoly on violence (and of course, it's understood that the people making more than you are not paying their "fair share") whether you like it or not, spent by people who generally have boundless disdain for the very people who pay those taxes, on people and causes on the other side of the planet. There's no connection between people, or between people and God, in this scenario.
  - bonsai_spool 1y ago
    > I'm not a highly religious person so I may well be wrong about this, but my understanding of Christian principles (as you referenced in your Bible quote) is that you, the individual, should do these kind things to other individuals personally; and in that act of doing so personally, you become closer to God. Why not read the verse and see that this refers to collections of people? The source material is readily available, no reason to speculate. https://biblehub.com/nkjv/matthew/25.htm https://biblehub.com/nkjv/matthew/25.htm
bonsai_spool 1y ago
>> It receives relatively little attention now, but in terms of sheer numbers the cuts to the USAID program have had and will continue to have the largest death toll of anything this administration does. > The US is not responsible for fixing every world issue. Just because they've helped in the past doesn't make them morally responsible for every current and future crisis. Your answer doesn't quite respond to the GP but instead feels like an expression of political opinion. From a moral stance, the action of stopping something seems quite distinct from a position in which the thing had never occurred.
pwarner 1y ago
I think helping control ebola pays a few dividends for the US. It was not completely selfless.
kerningije 1y ago
No dollar was ever spent by the US government outside of the US if not in self interest. Failing to see these cuts as sabotaging US interests is very, very naïve.
JoeAltmaier 1y ago
It's simple self-interest. Sure, sit on your money and smile while your neighbors die of Ebola. It won't happen here? Sure it could. When the chumps in DC tear down the infrastructure that managed things like this, then we become massively vulnerable.

frickinLasers 1y ago

> who knows how many have died in detention facilities If you're talking about ICE, it's officially 15 so far this year. [0] While this outbreak is bad for DR Congo, I wonder whether they will be able to contain it within their borders without adequate support. [0] https://www.borderreport.com/hot-topics/border-report-live/border-report-live-deaths-of-migrants-in-ice-on-the-rise-data-shows/ https://www.borderreport.com/hot-topics/border-report-live/b...

smallerize 1y ago
That doesn't count any of the 1,800 missing from Florida's recently-closed detention center.
- frickinLasers 1y ago
  I hope you're not implying they're already digging mass graves. Some are unaccounted for--they're probably in Guatemala or something. Some will die. But I don't see the gas chambers being built for, like, another six months at least.
  - smallerize 1y ago
    I don't think they're all dead, but with no accounting, we don't know how many.

harmmonica 1y ago

If you mean short term impacts that may be true, but I wonder if the medicaid, aca and likely medicare cuts will have material impacts on mortality. It will not be as easy to attribute, and therefore it’ll be hard to quantify (you might say that’s “convenient”), but the number of people impacted will be well into the tens of millions.

bonsai_spool 1y ago
> if you mean short term impacts that may be true, but I wonder if the medicaid, aca and likely medicare cuts will have material impacts on mortality. It will not be as easy to attribute, and therefore it’ll be hard to quantify (you might say that’s “convenient”), but the number of people impacted will be well into the tens of millions. I think these can't possible be commensurate - just consider how many more HIV cases there will be without US funding for overseas HIV prevention.
- harmmonica 1y ago
  I’m not so sure. 630,000 total HIV deaths annually. What percent are impacted by USAID and then how much growth in HIV deaths without USAID? My tens of millions comment is the people whose health care will potentially be impacted short term (medicaid and aca changes; Medicaid is currently 70 million people. ACA is 24 million) plus potential aggressive efforts to move medicare people to medicare advantage and you have another 68 million potentially exposed (that number isn’t actually that large today because a majority of those people will likely pass before the medicare changes have a negative impact, but over time, as people enter the system with worse coverage, the deaths will climb). Please understand I’m not saying I’m right about this but just that the vast number of people impacted by the admin’s policies re domestic health care makes me think it could be greater than USAID. edit: grammar and spelling
  - bonsai_spool 1y ago
    I am very genuinely interpreting all of this and I recognize you are just reviewing the data. HIV deaths are a lagging indicator, so any effect of today's policy will be delayed - as a general matter. But HIV in newborns will lead to death within a year if untreated, and adults with untreated HIV/AIDS will die from other communicable disease sooner than if they were treated. Since US hospitals public obligation in the US to treat people who are gravely ill, we're 'only' going to see a marked increase in deaths attributable to chronic disease, and I don't think the Medicaid cuts will survive in their current state. But it's true I don't have numbers on this and won't have a chance to get them this morning. Please share if you have a sense of comparative DALY/QALYs lost through USAID funding cuts vs Medicaid changes.