I say again. The defense budget nor any other current spending is preventing us from having free healthcare. Medicare for All would be significantly cheaper than our current healthcare costs. We're already paying for both defense and healthcare. Switching to M4A would save us money and improve our healthcare experience while completely ignoring the defense budget. We can easily do both. The insurance companies, big pharma, and hospital executives are the ones preventing M4A, not Raytheon.
The way of expressing this that really put it together for me was "The United States only ever has one total healthcare bill."
People not getting the healthcare they need already has costs; costs in hours they can't work because they're sick, costs in retraining people for jobs they can no longer do due to health issues, costs in people declaring bankruptcy because they were devastated by medical bills, and costs in lost human lives because of untreated sickness. All of those costs ripple through the economy, and we all wind up paying for them, one way or another.
Even if you assume that universal healthcare wouldn't actually improve the total base amount spent on medicine (it fucking would, in several ways, but assume that it doesn't just for the sake of argument), we would still be coming out ahead because we'd be sweeping the legs out from under the private healthcare industry, which only exists to siphon profits off of expenses that people have to pay or else they die.
Fuck everyone who ever voted against universal healthcare.
They’re aware. It’s no coincidence that the same party that just voted in favor of increasing military funding also dismantled the ACA and votes against socialized single-payer healthcare.
Well put.
Yeah that $895 billion should go to infrastructure and social services in the US. What a giant fucking waste of money they're using it on.
Social services investment would save the government money by reducing policing and incarceration costs, among other things. We could do both. I'd have to learn more about the financial side of infrastructure to say anything meaningful.
It would be great except if (and they would) turn over administration to private insurance companies.
How much of this goes to private contractors profits instead of actually helping defend this country and taking care of our troops?
70%
And if you even suggest lowering the amount spent. The Pentagon immediately stops supplying body armor to the troops and blames you for killing them...
About half, publicly at least. Half of all this budget will go directly to private contractors.
Compared to previous budgets, less. The rise in spending is 1%, whilst the rise in military wages will be 4.5% to reach a $15 Minium wage for federal employees (Neither is inflation adjusted).
Private contractors do help defend this country. Yes there are bad apples. I live near a ton of these private contractors since I live right outside DC. A lot of these guys are former troops. If you’re talking about the C-Suites, well, that’s an issue not exclusive to defense contracting.
What's a MAC and what do they do? A Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) is a private health care insurer that has been awarded a geographic jurisdiction to process Medicare Part A and Part B (A/B) medical claims or Durable Medical Equipment (DME) claims for Medicare Fee-For-Service (FFS) beneficiaries. CMS relies on a network of MACs to serve as the primary operational contact between the Medicare FFS program and the health care providers enrolled in the program. MACs are multi-state, regional contractors responsible for administering both Medicare Part A and Medicare Part B claims. MACs perform many activities including:
Process Medicare FFS claims Make and account for Medicare FFS payments Enroll providers in the Medicare FFS program Handle provider reimbursement services and audit institutional provider cost reports Handle redetermination requests (1st stage appeals process) Respond to provider inquiries Educate providers about Medicare FFS billing requirements Establish local coverage determinations (LCD’s) Review medical records for selected claims Coordinate with CMS and other FFS contractors
ETA; Wrt military private contractors, they used to be called "mercenaries." Iirc, Rene Descarte was, so make of that what you will.
Reading these comments about the defence budget, I'm trying to remember the last time the US "defended" themselves
Was it in 2001 when they "defended" themselves against Saudi Arabia by attacking Iraq?
The US went into Afghanistan in October 2001. We didn't go into Iraq until March 2003.
What, you expect us to remember in which order they started genociding brown people?!? 😂
The US DoD is for protecting economic interests more than anything.
WW2 was last time the US military actually did anything of value. After that they were fighting farmers and peasants and/or just feed the industrial machine.
USMC Major General Smedley Butler has a few words on this matter.
Is that him from Blazing Saddles?
Did they ever catch the pilots that did the 9/11s? I’ve been assured that they were cowards who hated freedom.
They defend their interests. It's practically the same thing, don't worry about it too much.
The most insidious part of this is people will say, "any price to keep us safe." Nevermind that a resource draining military is a catch22 proven idiotic by history time and time again, and we shouldn't be funding it at all. The money we are spending is absolutely not going to keep us safe. It goes to the heads of weapons manufacturers so that they can manipulate governments into buying their products and provke wars to create demand. As a veteran i can tell you it sure as shit doesn't go towards paying members of the military, it doesn't go towards buying top of the line equipment to keep us safe, and definitely not towards maintaining the broke ass equipment that the military has now. Even if you like the military, the best thing you can do is to topple the military industrial complex and advocate for less spending.
Oof that party split.
That’s how most votes go. Have you seen the marijuana decriminalization and expungement bill? Stalled in the House with 116 cosponsors.
Democrats need to vote in congressional elections.
Democrats need to vote in congressional elections.
"But the democratic candidates aren't perfect or exciting or far left enough, so I'm going to stay home and teach them a lesson!"
Narrator: that lesson? That your (left) vote isn't worth fighting for, so they go right to get votes. V. O. T. E.
To add to your point, not voting is ceding power to those who would (and do!) act against you and your best interests. Perfect is the enemy of good. No candidate exists that shares all your views, so the only way to make things better is to vote for the better option that can win so the worse option doesn't roll back progress. If that's not good enough, run for office yourself locally or invest in local parties to change your locale for the better.
bOtH sIdEs aRe tHe sAmE
Republicans are "fuck everyone but the insanely wealthy". Democrats are "give a crumb to everyone and everything else to the insanely wealthy". Voting Democrat is the only real option we have in this country against a "side" that wants to destroy everything America is about, but it's still voting for a bunch of scumbags who are just going to vote for the same thing that maybe isn't quite as absolutely devastating to every single person who makes under a billion dollars in this country but still doesn't help nearly enough.
Alter or abolish. Voting is useless.
We already give a fuck ton of money to healthcare, even more than we give to the defense budget. The problem is that too much of our money goes to lobbying, pharma companies, medical companies, hospital Administrators, and other greedy fucks. We pay health insurance and most of the time they try to screw us over. What we need is paying for stuff that will actually go directly to us. Throwing as much money as possible doesn't help, we need to make sure that the money goes where we want it to go.
Federal Spending budget:
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/
895 TRILLION to main, kill and destroy others and militarize police. Our own people living in cars and sleeping rough.
Imagine if it was 216-214? That would be impressive.
So many assholes, looking at the votes...
bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe LoL aMiRiTe WhY bOThEr VoTiNg, being egged on by his palDimitriJessie on social media, to keep his purity intact by not bothering to vote.So. Who u guys defending against?
Mexico? Canada?
The funding helps keep the portal closed. If we slip up, it's all over for humanity.
We have to keep pouring oil into The Emperor of Mankind, otherwise the warp will consume us.
No one. We're funneling tax dollars into arms manufacturer's pockets, and the pockets of their shareholders. 'Murica.
Communism and Terrorism. If we just shoot those ideas enough...
Pretty sure 'muricans are planning to invade Canada, South Park made a whole movie about that!
Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Don Davis (D-NC), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), Jared Golden (D-ME), Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX) and Mary Peltola (D-AK)
Cuellar, of course.
What the fuck are they defending if we’re all already dead? Fucking greedy bastards
THIS HAS GOT TO FUCKING STOP!!! THE WEAPONS CO.OANIES MUST BE NATIONALIZED!! NOTHING WILL EVER CHANGE UNTIL LOBBYISTS ARE IMPRISONED FOR BRIBES! ELECT ME AND I WILL PUT AND END TO THIS BULLSHIT
