Perhaps, vitamins, micro doses of aspirin, and other low level medical treatments should also be added to water, for the benefit of the silent poor and sick.
Or even crazier, hear me out, maybe we can just let people have healthcare without cost-gating it? Like oh idk, every other even semi-wealthy nation in the world except the one where measles is making a comeback?
Public healthcare systems in other countries have procedures they don't cover, and significant wait periods (i.e., shortages) to see doctors and specialists and have procedures done. Because of the cost.
I'm not saying they aren't better than America's, but the idea you can just let people have it and not worry about costs isn't true. Health is like around quarter of entire government expenditure, it's fantastically expensive. Around the same amount of welfare expenditure, so you could double the number of people receiving welfare or double the amount that welfare recipients get for the same price, for example, which would be lifechanging for millions of the poorest and most disadvantaged people.
> except the one where measles is making a comeback?
I mean, raise taxes on businesses (wanna guess how many walmart employees are on government aid, i.e how much we tax payers are directly subsidizing their exorbitant profits while they pay their employees below a living wage?)Tax the rich, (3 individuals hoard more wealth than 50% of the country combined) + Cut some large percentage of insurance jobs, military spending, and use that money to provide healthcare to every american, without spending time and money making sure they're poor before we deign them able to receive help. really, it's quite simple.
>Public healthcare systems in other countries have procedures they don't cover, and significant wait periods (i.e., shortages) to see doctors and specialists and have procedures done.
Agreed there. Ever wonder why?
Taking your point earnestly for a moment, can you earnestly tell me that's not still miles better than America, with more expensive outcomes, worse care outcomes, lowering life expectancy compared to poorer nations, record maternal mortality rates, and tons of medical bankruptcies?[2]
Cmon, be serious. Go fund me is one of the bigger health insurance systems in the country.[3] Btw, medicare for all saves tremendous amounts of money vs our current system.[1] Much like ubi, the science is clear, but the rich and the naive are too brainwashed or dumb by the propaganda of the oligarchy owned media to think American's deserve healthcare, housing, a dignified life.
Seriously, Compare your "worst case" to america, where people simply can't afford to see the specialists, or get the procedures at ALL. I know which one I would have and my opinion is backed by the sentiment, and empirical data of, like I said, literally every even half developed nation in the world. Your can offer nothing against this. It's simply fact.
That's not even to speak about women dying from things like birth complications because their draconian state let the theocratic fascists dictate what a women and their doctor can and can't do with their own body.[0]
>because of the cost
Drastic, brazen or glib misunderstanding of history and politics. Throughout conservative governments, from reagan to thatcher to bush to trump, the objective of these ayn rand reading dummies, (read, austerity politicians) are as follows:
1. cut funding to vital social agency.
2. point to resulting difficulties as proof it's a silly system.
3. sell it off to private corporations and get hefty kickbacks.
THAT is what causes all of the (still lesser than ours) problems you lament.
>the idea you can just let people have it and not worry about costs isn't true
Where did I say that again?
Man, if only someone had thought of that. If only we had a 1% that controls almost 40% of the wealth in this country. We could raise taxes to pay for such a program. Btw, I reiterate, every study, (even from neocon think tanks) recognize it would save us hundreds of billions.) But austerity/conservative politicians don't want to improve the lives of us, they want to enrich their fellow oligarchs.
Even thinking about this for a second will validate the notion. Instead of hundreds and thousands of employees whose job it is to give the least care to the least people for profit, maybe spend that money oh, idk, giving people healthcare? How much healthcare could've been provided from Luigi's cough victim's salary? If instead of getting paid millions to use AI to deny healthcare to those in need, that money was oh idk, spent on healthcare?
>Health is like around quarter of entire government expenditure, it's fantastically expensive.
Gee, I wonder what the cause of that is. Oh wait, I know this one too. Pretty common conservative talking point. Have you heard of the phrase "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?"
Do you think a system where people are afraid to go to the dr for economic reasons contribute at all to the drastic healthcare expenses? I know someone that works as an ER nurse, people do not come in til they're at deaths door, with an issue that would have been remedied for a 100th the cost had they simply been able to see a doctor when first troubled. And again, all studies point to medicare for all saving hundreds of billions vs our current system.[1]
>Around the same amount of welfare expenditure, so you could double the number of people receiving welfare or double the amount that welfare recipients get for the same price, for example, which would be lifechanging for millions of the poorest and most disadvantaged people.
Or we could idk, just stop wasting money on evil "who deserves help" jobs and just you know, give that money directly to the people our government is supposed to improve the lives of? This goes for welfare, healthcare, unemployment, etc, too. How much of our social safety nets' budgets are spent in bureaucrats meant to make it difficult to get those benefits? To subsidize billion $ corporations? To bail out banks who speculated on subprime mortgages? To fund a $9T war on terror that did nothing but make us more enemies?
This is a fairly unhinged reply to my quite specific question and comment. Pretty rude saying things like this
> Drastic, brazen or glib misunderstanding of history and politics
while pretending you weren't just spouting on about measels htat you had no idea about.
Healthcare is extremely expensive and taxing more won't magically make costs irrelevant or the cost of healthcare having to be weighed against other important and worthwhile government expenditure like welfare. That's just the reality of it no matter how much you're going to prattle on.
Apparently the US spends twice on healthcare for the same outcomes compared to comparable nations with universal healthcare. Therefore the concern about costs does not add up.
> Apparently the US spends twice on healthcare for the same outcomes compared to comparable nations with universal healthcare.
Sure, but I was talking about costs in other developed countries, not USA. Healthcare in Australia is about 1/4 of government expenditure with welfare being another 1/4, for example.
> Therefore the concern about costs does not add up.
Non-sequitur. Costs obviously do and I explained in very simple terms why (e.g., you could double welfare payments for about the same cost). Please explain your reasoning if you want to support the claim that cost is not a concern.
What's your point equating welfare spending to healthcare spending? To suggest that we fund welfare more instead of putting more money in to healthcare? Why??? Are you simply stating that giving x money to one social program is the same as giving x money to another? What is your point, your policy proscription?
Giving $x to healthcare is almost always better than giving $x to welfare, as well funded universal healthcare reduces OOP costs for citizens, which reduces their need to consume other welfare services.[0,1]
> What's your point equating welfare spending to healthcare spending?
I'm not equating the spending, only the costs.
> To suggest that we fund welfare more instead of putting more money in to healthcare?
I'm not suggesting that, I'm explaining what the cost of healthcare is in terms of another enormous government programe.
> Why??? Are you simply stating that giving x money to one social program is the same as giving x money to another?
No.
> What is your point, your policy proscription?
To try to give you some perspective about the enormous cost of universal healthcare.
> Giving $x to healthcare is almost always better than giving $x to welfare, as well funded universal healthcare reduces OOP costs for citizens, which reduces their need to consume other welfare services.[0,1]
Calm down and take a breath and try re-reading what I wrote in my first comment. It's extremely simple, maybe the fact I pointed out you were wrong about measles set you off badly. I'm not saying healthcare expenditure is bad or worse than other welfare or that America has a good healthcare system. I said that healthcare is cost gated in countries with universal healthcare systems. Which it is. In your hypothetical fairy land of unicorns and pixies where corporations and billionaires pay for everything, sure it's not cost gated, and neither is your government issued pony. But that is not an answer to my point that healthcare in countries with universal healthcare systems (and America, if it were to adopt one), is cost gated. Cost gated meaning people who need or want treatment will not be able to receive it in a timely manner in all cases.
Yeah, I was a little heated, because I misunderstood what you meant by cost-gated, and thought you were being rhetorical and bad faith. My bad there.
We simply had different definitions of cost-gated, and talked past each other because of it.
>my point that healthcare in countries with universal healthcare systems (and America, if it were to adopt one), is cost gated
Sure, but... who cares? It still produces better outcomes, better coverage, better in nearly every measurable way. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
>Cost gated meaning people who need or want treatment will not be able to receive it in a timely manner in all cases.
Yeah, sure, but that really isn't the point. The point was that free at point of service (what I meant by not cost-gated) healthcare produces better outcomes, covers a larger % of citizens, and is generally simply a better way to do healthcare. Not receiving in a timely manner is miles better than not receiving at all because you can't afford it. That's a pretty worthy delineation to make, even if you could in the abstract call both "cost-gated".
The overall point is socialized medicine costs less, provides better outcomes, covers more people. All the rest is besides the point I was trying to make. Sorry again for coming in so hot, I'm clearly much too used to arguing with much more dishonest people than yourself.
Yeah, almost like he's a dishonest fool at best, or propagandist who will do anything to avoid acknowledging the simple, universally backed by data assertion that healthcare for all is cheaper, provides better outcomes, and the source of the problems of universal systems - austerity politicians who's m.o i laid out plainly. Defund, claim it doesn't work, privatize.
Complains I didn't answer every one of his points AND that my response was too long. Clearly a dishonest propagandist or a fool.
Disagreed, If you need soft kind words to believe the guy telling you the sky is blue over the guy speaking softer but telling you the sky is red, you're the problem, not me.
I respond in good faith until the other party shows themselves not to be, and his glib rhetoric of "what do you mean, cost-gated?" while in the next sentence demonstrating he knows exactly what I'm speaking of - a public healthcare option - made it clear what type of person I was dealing with, and it wasn't a good faith commenter.
I've heard every argument that guy made and can make 1000 times over from fox news talking heads or an equivalent level person.
What strengthens my positions are, well, the truthfulness of them. All of the facts and studies support my message, playing nice with a bad faith commenter has no bearing on any of the facts I presented.
Not to mention he calls a thought out, four citation response "unhinged prattle" because he refuses to engage with any of my responses (he knows i'm right) to his dishonest comment. It's the conservative m.o, I've seen it a thousand times.
If you can't/won't accept reality because there was some extremely mild condescension, that's on you. Plus that guy deserved no good faith, I've heard his exact comment from every conservative talking head for a decade+, I know guys like him backwards to forwards (politically)
> I respond in good faith until the other party shows themselves not to be,
That was my first comment.
> and his glib rhetoric of "what do you mean, cost-gated?" while in the next sentence demonstrating he knows exactly what I'm speaking of - a public healthcare option
Public healthcare is cost-gated though. The recipient doesn't see the cost, but they see wait lists and procedures and medications and devices that are not covered. It is cost-gated. Prattling on about taxing the rich doesn't change that, it's just deflecting and changing the subject. If governments had unlimited money then healthcare would not be cost gated. Great. Astounding deduction. Now back to reality...
I think your attempt to spread disinformation about measles -- or worse, simply being willfully uninformed about simple facts yet trying to make statements of authority about them -- shows exactly what kind of person I'm dealing with.
Ok, I see where the misunderstanding arose. Cost-gating in this context meant, to me, preventing access to healthcare based on if the individual can pay at point of service, not if the state program can pay to see people quickly or whatever. Apologies for not giving the best faith interpretation to your comment, but you can hopefully see why I misunderstood your use of the term.
Sure, as a byproduct of systematically underfunded social health programs, you see a similar effect in countries with social healthcare, but I refuted the importance of that point pretty completely by explaining the m.o of austerity politicians and worse than gilded-age levels of wealth inequality[0] as the sources of social healthcare systems' ails and the clear fact that it's still a much better system by any measure.
The outcomes are still better, cheaper, and more have access to healthcare. So, not really relevant to the point that public healthcare > privatized healthcare? The rest is semantic word games. We're talking about which system provides better outcomes to more people for less money. And there is no question as to the answer of that.
>Disinformation about the measles
Sure, I was unaware how severe the anti vaccination rhetoric has taken root in europe too. My tongue in cheek dig at measles being back in the US was not meant to be taken that seriously, but more like a "point and laugh at the us" addendum.
But you are right, though it's besides the point completely. That we're the only country suffering from anti vax idiots is incorrect, sure. But it is not even really part of the argument here, more just a dig on the US. Idk why that tiny part of the discussion was fixated on. Probably because it's the only point I wasn't correct about.
One man's slippery slope, is another man's exploration of an idea. I don't think exploring widely is unproductive.
I could also say, that discussing slippery slopes (a linguistic discussion) is itself what moves the discussion too far from the original topic. You protest too much.
The trouble with slippery slopes is that not all of them are fallacious, as you are suggesting. This is a reasonable point: if we are doing delivery of medicine through tap water, where's the line? A few people have seriously suggested putting low doses of lithium in the tap water as a societal antidepressant.
The line is where we've drawn it now - nothing has changed in decades. A few people suggest all kinds of things, that doesn't make them at imminent risk of happening.
The difference is that fluoride is effectively an industrial waste product and thus it benefits multiple parties to use it. If vitamins were also an industrial waste product, we would indeed be adding them to lots of things.
Do you think there's a difference between a/ treating water to make it clean and b/ adding minerals and vitamins for the benefit of others, whether they want it or not?
Not really. I'm sure some people want distilled water to come out of their tap. You can't provide any service to a large group of people without giving some of them something they don't want in some way or another.
That's exactly what I was trying to convey with my hyperbolic statement. I remember when I first moved to the city after being on well water for the first 25 years of my life and being put off by the chlorinated smell of the water. Now when I go back to visit family I'm put off by the well water... Especially when taking a shower.
I can't help but come away from this conversation with the impression that you people are talking about livestock and not human individuals with rights to their own body and bodily autonomy. This to me is straight out of the nazi/communist/fascist type of mindset.
