A lot of good people think that if we just cut the “defense” budget we could finance effective, universal Health Care in the United States.
One of the saddest "secrets" is that while the bloated U.S. war budget totals an astounding $1.2+ Trillion per year, that’s $3,600 per person per year (PPPY) not counting domestic social control costs for police, prisons, jails, etc, the total cost of our corporate, for-profit remedial sick care system is over $3.4 Trillion per year. That’s more than $10,000 PPPY and is climbing rapidly. To put that into perspective, the number one rated French system spends less than $4,800 PPPY for a much superior, universal Health Care system.
I'm completely convinced that the only path toward ending “terrorism” and achieving world peace would be to abandon our global military Empire, cut our massive, bloated war budgets down to a size needed for a "Defense Department" and then use the savings for a Department of Peace to engage in global and domestic Restorative Justice.
Alas, the relatively smaller amount of dollars wasted on war, the REAL source of our debt and deficit over the last 30+ years, would not give us enough to finance even 20% of our existing sick care as commodity system. In addition, that system's need for ever-increasing corporate profits and thus increased "costs" in order to satisfy Wall Street would quickly eat up the relatively small amounts that could be realized.
Of course, that's assuming that the REAL third rail of U. S. politics, cutting the war budgets would ever be touched by the current crop of politicians.
So even compassionate, rational, pro-Health Care folks who suggest we could pay for it by cutting the bloated war budgets are looking at the wrong part of the equation.
The part that has to be ended is tinkering with (the last) remedial sick care system driven by the profit-motive and provide “Health Care As a Human Right”.
Passing HR676 – Expanded and Improved Medicare for All would be the best first step toward that end.
http://pnhp.org/
Comments
And a Department of DEFENSE is the perfect direction.
And it may be discovered that constant war CAUSES health problems within the populous and without constant war a healthier populous would reduce healthcare costs.
Oh don’t worry, Tubularsock is not going to hold his breath!
Thanks for being a reflected American.
Tubularsock is pretty sure that we can all have PERFECT healthcare for everyone!
Hell, if the Pentagon can run on “misplaced” funds and continue full force you are saying that the health system can’t run on the same kind of “faith” as well?
ChetDude, you have been taken in. You only looked at discretionary spending. Many of the smaller pieces in this portion of spending are stated as the responsibility of the Federal government in the Constitution. The smallest piece of the total actual spending is interest on the federal debt which is also defined in the constitution as their responsibility. The largest portion of the $1.11T discretionary spending as you ChetDude pointed out is 'military' at 53.71% and with administration 'government' piece of the pie 6.57%. But military spending is mandated by the Constitution, obviously not 'discretionary' ($671.38B). The rest of 'discretionary' spending is actually not mandated by the Constitution, so actually 'discretionary' spending.
Now to the part the DIMMS do not want to talk about, 'mandatory' spending. In reality the Constitution does not mandate the responsibility of any portion of this spending and prior to the Great Depression it was very small. I believe that only 'veteran benefits' was a budget item prior to 1930. Recall that 'discretionary' spending is $1.11T and 'mandatory' spending is $2.45T, more then double.
ChetDude wants to cut the military budget a measly $598.49B, and I say that because 'mandatory' spending is about five time larger. Made up of mostly welfare spending that is not a requirement defined by the constitution so is under the control of our temporary elected representatives, at their whim. It is only 'mandatory' spending because they have told the public since 1935 that it is a right. And created the allusion that citizens have invested in in them, but the supreme court has defined them as a TAX.
Medicare and other health care costs represent 38.40% of 'mandatory' spending is $985.74B almost double military spending. Medicare was added 1965 under LBJ and a DIM congress, both houses. The biggest part of the 'mandatory' spending pie is 'social security, unemployment and labor' started in 1935 by again a DIM congress and president, FDR. It represent 48.56% of the 'mandatory' pie spending $1250B. Only 13.04% remains.
ChetDude, total spending is $3800B in 2015 of which the Constitution only requires defense of the nation, payment of debt and its interest, and the operating cost of the government, $671.38B + $229.15B = $0.9T. So the required by the Constitution spending is only 36.76% of all spending.
ChetDude, do you not thing that congress can change is whim of how it spend none required spending to fit in more welfare health care? They only have a 63.24% to play with of total spending.
None of that will happen because profits are all that matter in the United States of Hypocrisy...
Earned Benefits like Social Security and Medicare (only problem with it being that it's at the mercy of the greed of the leeches in the last corporate, for-profit sick care industry on the Planet) are mostly pay as you go...they are NOT the drag on the economy that the bloated war machine is...and provide a much more effective multiplying factor than wasting money on war does...
The bloated war machine eats up nearly 60% of the Federal discretionary budget to create more "enemies" to keep the profits rolling in...
Romans lost their desire to pay for the defense of the borders of the Empire from Odoacer and the other barbarians. They turned to a hired army of people that could care less about the empire, drawn to high pay. And internal troubles cause the border troops to be pulled back and the size of the armies were also decreased.
"Emperor Nero once declared, "Let us tax and tax again. Let us see to it that no one owns anything!"" (above reference) Sound familiar? Shortly the minority leader in the house will become the majority leader, in full control of the agenda in the house of Representatives. This was her campaign cry for 2018.
So please tell us what level of the federal spending is enough for welfare? Curious minds want to know, ChetDude? How small does the people that pay taxes have to go to and how much of the money they earn need to be transferred to the lower classes? ChetDude this is the fundamental question that needs to be answered before we can discuss your additional welfare program.
James Travil, Qasim Raza, George Romey, and Stone-Eater your all welcome to also answer the question I just asked ChetDude.
There can't be a fixed level. What we in Europe need is a financial transaction tax rerouted to welfare, education and job growth, i.e. investments. Whether it's FIAT money or not, it looks good in the calculations LOL
Decent healthcare for our citizens? Nope, we're broke.
Based on what I have learned from those experiences, you really need to do some more research.
I also escaped the "military mentality" over 50 years ago and have expanded my knowledge base way beyond the myopic box I inhabited back then.
YOU really need to listen up to the folks who know a lot more than you do...
"Army Intelligence" is an oxymoron...
Do I get a big Cheer, Stone Eater!!!!
Has the idea existed for 20 years?
Was it called something else then?
It is funny, when PPACA first came in some PCPs supported it, as they are volume-based providers and thought it would bring in increased numbers of patient-encounters.
That went south pretty fast when they saw the PPACA meant you had a lot of functionally uninsured patients with an insurance card and unrealistic expectations.
Specialists, by and large, opposed it knowing it was unworkable.
Here is where you tell me that, "Medicare for All" is not PPACA. But here is also where you don't tell me how it will be any better.
I get the general idea from Ms. Ocasio-Cortez that you think you can generate savings by replacing the American Health Care . . . never thinking you will (at least initially) thereby increase demand, reduce competition and most likely increase costs.
Why don't you see that the whole point of this is to reduce the consolidation of payers and providers? Increase competition, allow technological and operational disruption to improve the state0f the art and make this something other than a machine burrocracy.
Nov. 30, 2018
In-Depth Analysis by Team of UMass Amherst Economists Shows Viability of Medicare For All Comprehensive plan is estimated to reduce U.S. health consumption expenditures by nearly 10 percent, while providing decent health care coverage to all Americans
https://www.peri.umass.edu/images/Medicare_For_All_release_Nov18.pdf
https://www.peri.umass.edu/publication/item/1127-economic-analysis-of-medicare-for-all
The fact that we need to increase the number of seats in Medical and Nursing (and Dental) Schools and begin supporting higher education with our taxes again (as it was in the 60s and 70s) in order to provide enough Health Care professionals who can provide care along with building publicly funded, decentralized clinics and non-profit hospitals to more effectively deliver care for the larger numbers of people who would be empowered to receive it once HR676 - Expanded and Improved Medicare for All is passed is often overlooked.
PPACA was WRITTEN by the industry. So the Kabuki that played out in 2009-2010 was a faux-controversy designed to obscure the fact that PPACA would do NOTHING about the major perversion and cost driving mechanism that has resulted in the most costly 37th rate system on the Planet that is, the corporate profit-motive.
And the sound and fury was designed to make sure that HR676 was NEVER MENTIONED...
Specialists opposed it because they thought that their outrageous and ever bloating charges that insurance corporations gladly pay (higher gross=higher profits) would be threatened by "public option" and other such horrors that might control their greed. Did you know that general practitioners are vastly overworked and underpaid compared to the millionaire "specialists" who control the AMA?
'The case for European health care'
By Scott Sumner
'It might seem surprising to find a defense of Euro-style health care in a market friendly blog. In fact, I actually prefer the small government approach of Singapore to either the European or the US system. Nonetheless, I’m going to argue that the European system (or systems) is probably better than the US system.'
It's not that hard to understand and Mr. Sumner apparently agrees with me that HR676 is the best way to go...
They place a huge burden of much higher co-pays and other costs onto the backs of the people who use it. So their poor and less well off get screwed even harder than they do here...but there are fewer of them and Singapore really doesn't care. If they complain too loudly (or spit on the sidewalk or chew gum in public), they'll just cane them...
And of course, Singapore is REALLY among the richest nations per capita on Earth (over $20,000 per person MORE per capita income than the U.S.) and is actually a CITY with 1/2 the population of L.A. rather than a nation.
Now let's add big pharma to the picture. They are getting the government to approve drugs that have little or no value then advertising them as miracle drugs with a hefty price tag. Then payola for doctors that prescribe. Cut out this nonsense and it would bring medical costs down as well.
I believe if these steps are taken,(I know, in my dreams) we could cut health care costs by two thirds and I still believe we should rein in the military industrial complex.
Finally an audit of the federal reserve would expose a lot of financial scams and rid us of most of the national debt
HR676 DOES get the leeches in the corporate insurance industry with their 30-40% overheads and profits and denial of care out of the mix. A HUGE savings. It also gives us the big stick to use (a SINGLE-BUYER) to beat the drug pushers in Big PhRMA among others into submission.
If you read the article again, you'll find that I agree about the war machine. I believe that the bloated war budgets should be cut by at least 75% and a lot of that money saved used for a Department of Peace to heal some of the damage done by our 74 year old Forever War and end the creation of new enemies and to prepare our infrastructure for a much more hostile environment thanks to fossil-fueled AGW/Climate Change (for the worse)...
So I will agree that cutting the pentagons budget will not by itself pay for medical, but if you at the same time reform the medical profession you will find it will easily be enough. But in this day and age where corporations can legally buy out our politicians and politicians can engage in insider trading with impunity we are pretty much screwed. Add to that the intelligence community keeping files on all citizens and spying on everybody it makes it impossible to organize a resistance movement without infiltration by the government. We are screwed.
The number for the entire global war machine is around $1.2 to 1.3 Trillion per year. Or nearly 60% of Discretionary Federal Spending - and it's still climbing rapidly...
The remedial sick care system sucks up about $3.4 Trillion per year. 60% of that (over $2 Trillion per year) is paid for by the U.S. Taxpayer.
If we had France's system (usually rated the best in outcomes) at the cost they pay per person, it would be $1.632 Trillion per year and cover EVERYONE (including house calls from doctors!).
I agree the reason we have a bloated military machine (that can't "win" a war) and a hopelessly expensive 37th rate "health care" system is because we DO NOT live in a democracy but rather an Oligarchy which over the last 40 years or so has re-established complete control over the government via campaign bribes and their massive corporate propaganda machine.
To understand the framework they used to bring them back from the horror of being forced by a People's coalition of Unions and non-capitalist Movements and the New Deal response to the failure of capitalism into actually sharing a little of the bounty from the 40s through 1971, check out the Powell Memo of 1971:
The Powell Memo: A Call-to-Arms for Corporations
http://billmoyers.com/content/the-powell-memo-a-call-to-arms-for-corporations/
The Powell Memo (also known as the Powell Manifesto)
first published August 23, 1971
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/
That plus a few billion dollars at first of mostly far-right-wing plutocrat money (initially Schaife, Coors, Koch, etc) and finally starting in the late 70s gained the collusion of both wings of the One Big Party and the entire corporate capitalist establishment, the counter-revolution allowed Bill Clinton to complete Reagan's "revolution". And then it all got even worse...
Profits Must Not Drive Health Care
Retaliation for whatever I write here and have written elsewhere for years will be a little too late... :-)
Bottom line is that our medical system has been polluted with corporate greed and scam artists. My personal opinion is 90% of the medical system is nothing but a profit for big corporations, big pharma, insurance and scam artists.
Another example. They decided I needed hearing aids. I went to the exam. Have no idea what they charged the government. They ordered me some hearing aids. Costs? No idea. The hearing aids came in without a volume control. They wanted me to come down for adjustments to the volume charging the government $300 for every visit. I asked them why I didn't get the ones with volume control. They said you might change the volume yourself!!!! I can't even use them. I can sit one on the table and you can hear it screeching. It's nothing but a scam.
You really think cutting the military budget won't pay for health care? Not the way it is now it won't. Corruption and greed. Same problem we have with the military and every other government orginization.
Indeed, I'd say the profit-motive that drives the U.S. system is a major cause of the mistrust and Calvinist punitive tendencies in the system that is causing you stress you don't deserve.
My best to you.
We need a national healthcare plan!
by Disqlosure Dec 15, 2018 - 6:01am