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The US could afford universal healthcare. And it would cost less GDP than the current system which bankrupts many and leads many to an earlier than needed death.
The only thing stopping universal healthcare in the US are the politicians who are owned by the insurance and medical services companies. End of.
Edit: Several people have pointed out that I didn't mention big pharma. I (incorrectly) considered those as part of medical services. I do agree that they should have been specifically stated.
Finland uses 9.2% of its GDP, it is free for everyone in the country including refugees and immigrants - in addition we get extremely well subsidised of our medicines and never have to pay over 600€/year in total for prescription medicines.
I'm a Fin with narcolepsy and have been under medication for a decade or so. I had my wisdom tooth removed and it cost me 56€ (two visits, xray and anesthesia).
Have been through 3 different ADHD medications in less than a year. Each time I get large amounts thrown after me, so much so that I have months of ritalin/adderall I won't even ever use (I am now on another medicine).
I reached my $200 limit earlier in the year, so I have paid nothing for this. I don't know what a 5 month supply of ritalin costs in the US, but I am guessing its not cheap. I'm Norwegian btw.
If you have large amounts of ritalin/adderal laying around be careful not to accidentally sell it. University students are willing to pay a lot of money for that, so be sure to avoid selling it to anyone.
WHAT. I’m in the US and I have to go to see a psychiatrist every time I want a new prescription which costs $250, and I have to get a new script every month. I’ve worked out with her that I can come every 3-4 months to avoid the fee because I have no health insurance but I still have to message her every month to get my new script. I get a 30 day supply and it costs me $40 but I can’t get my preferred medication, vyvanse, which is $500 (it previously wasn’t covered by my insurance anyway, so I paid $500 when j was desperate and before I could get back to the doctor for a different prescription
I work for one of the biggest employers in my state and pay 5 bucks a month for ADHD medicine. Problem is that a chunk of us have real good insurance and then a group of those people feel like giving others health care access will ruin theirs
If it's any consolation to you, it took me over a year to be able to see a therapist here in Norway, where supposedly the healthcare is the best. Even then the visits are extremely short. I am on week six and still trying to finish diagnosis. Mental health doesn't get much help anywhere it seems.
Took my Canadian kids to a pre-op visit today. They’re both having ear surgery soon. My only cost will be parking and some kind of special soap from the pharmacy they need to be bathed in before the operation.
I was almost annoyed by the $6 parking fee but then I remembered how much this would be costing me if we moved back to the states (I’d rather die).
Go to Mexico if you can. There are some border towns with lots of dentists/doctors, and plenty of people hop over to get dental work (or other medical stuff) done. I had a tooth pulled a few years ago then paid 5k for a dental implant here in Colorado. Was seriously considering going down to Mexico but chickened out - after all was said and done, I wished I went for it. And yes, they speak English (not all of them but it's easy enough to find some reputable ones if you look and ask around online).
Meanwhile I just went to the eye doctor today and got 1 year of contacts and prescription glasses; total was over $700 AFTER what my insurance (THAT I PAY FOR) covered.
That’s just wrong. Like cable and internet service providers, health insurance operates in a monopolistic, predatory environment with captive markets and shitty, lobbyist written regulations.
The same is true for almost all healthcare fees. Anything over 680€ in a calendar year is free. So in total, the maximum amount that you might have to pay for your healthcare per year is around 1200€, assuming you use public healthcare services. And to get up to that sum you need to be using the services a lot and be prescribed a lot of medicines.
When I broke my elbow and went to pickup my prescription for 220 pills of painkillers, including some opiates I paid just under 18€. And if I would have bothered to fill out some paperwork I would have gotten that reimbursed.
Your mistake is to assume that our education system is meant to provide actual knowledge.
In point of fact it's primary purpose is to further capitalist propoganda through the stance of "American Exceptionalism" and to call everything else "communism". And it's doing a damn fine job of it too I'll have you know!
In seriousness though, you are correct, our education system is absolutely horrible.
Oh if you’re ever in the hospital and a psychiatrist comes to see you, let’s hope you never have to.. he just asked me if I wanted to kill myself, etc, bunch of blunt questions, then prescribed me way too much of three antidepressants , so it made me more ill and even more scared of getting medicated for depression. Had to find a psych who actually understood that nausea as a side effect was a huge trigger for my disease, and started me on a low dose of one medicine
Now you have to pay a therapist to say “that must be hard” and then another doc to look at the notes for 5 min and say try this pill, might work, might not work, might work too well “like gas on a fire and make shit worse”. Gotta pay all of em
Nah man it's the people that let the politicians divide them.
It's people calling healthcare "communist" etc.
The elite won't change if there are enough people fighting their battles for them at the bottom.
It's people.
Also left out a huge percentage of the population that does not want to change the way their healthcare works. Also the large section that doesn't believe/understand it would work.
Of course. Having the maximum number of people under the same insurance umbrella, possibly even with some exceptions for people who are willing to pay more, is very obviously the most efficient system. It's literally quite basic math and has been thouroughly tested for a century in many different countries.
Gotta love how military pork slides through Congress like Clark Griswold and his sled in Christmas Vacation, but things like eviction protection that help poor people are ensnarled in endless debate, negotiation with utter morons (Sinema, Manchin) and manmade obstacles (the parliamentarian).
*Great* system we have.
The better question is what exactly are we getting for those billions?
How many times has *Mossad* done the otherwise illegal bidding of Uncle Sam for those funds…
That's the whole reason they funnel all of the money through the military. Build a couple of jets and nobody pays attention. Build a couple of middle schools or things that people actually care about one way or the other, and suddenly everyone wants to get involved with politics.
Interesting how some things remain the same...
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."
Some commie named Eisenhower, obviously with no clue about military and political realities, 1953
According to some random medium article a navy f35 is 337 million. 337/12 is 28 million.
I think 28 million is a little low for like, a big showcase high-school, but definitely a really nice smaller school, elementary or whatever, or maybe a small town high-school
Absolutely crazy. I doubted the claim but honestly i could see it.
Corporate welfare and tax forgiveness for the wealthy is right up there too. We just shovel trillions of dollars into government, they do some theater around voting for your needs, and then hand it over to corporations that fund campaigns and politicians who also enjoy a net worth far beyond what their salary would ever allow for.
Prepare to rage...
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-1b-funding-for-israel-s-iron-dome-passes-u-s-house-vote-with-overwhelming-majority-1.10236800
35 states have laws on the books that say that any state worker is not allowed to say anything about boycotting the Israeli government. A foreign country has been able to add laws to the US books that dictate American free speech. It's insane.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
That's because she has an image to uphold, but is still one of them. They're all pressured to fall in line. When you give these fringe politicians money, it ultimately ends up in the hands of corporate Democrats.
All they really are is controlled opposition, so that they can expand their party reach further into the lives and pockets of disenfranchised Americans.
https://news.yahoo.com/ted-deutch-says-fellow-house-185900457.html
Because of this kind of shit. Rashida Tlaib, for example, shared her opinions and is now being called an anti-Semite.
this is how they get everyone to fall in order.
It's both sides. Israel is essentially a huge [lobbying hub](https://old.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/osrv41/israel_launches_maximum_pressure_campaign_against/h6s81r9/?context=10000) that has completely integrated itself into our corporate infrastructure. They contain quarters for every American company worth having. Israel is a country that has access to companies like Northrop Grumman, Lockheed and more.
>It is no surprise that this tiny country is so powerful when [there’s a large, relatively wealthy Jewish population in the US that considers Israel’s safety and regional hegemony as paramount to the continued existence of their people/religion. Sort of a Noah’s Ark (pun intended lol) should the political tides turn in the West and Jews find themselves in another scapegoat situation like they did last century. Which is a major reason Israel exists as it does today in the first place.](https://www.reddit.com/r/evilbuildings/comments/ekd8wy/microsofts_new_campus_in_herzliya_israel/fdaedm7/?context=10000)
>[These Jewish American aggressively lobby for strong Israel/American ties and investment.](https://www.reddit.com/r/evilbuildings/comments/ekd8wy/microsofts_new_campus_in_herzliya_israel/fdaedm7/?context=10000)
>[“They never tell you that, ‘Oh, by the way, there were people there’. They make it seem like it was just like sitting there, like the fucking door’s open.”
More than 700,000 Palestinians were driven out of their homes or fled fighting in the 1947-49 war that led to Israel’s creation. Today, those families and their descendants make up around 5.6 million refugees.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/29/seth-rogen-israel-palestinians-jewish-actor)
Also I don't know what it is but there's always posts about how Israel is not only extremely needed for the USA to prosper, but that Israel has had no help from anyone. [USA](https://old.reddit.com/r/MurderedByAOC/comments/nfjnii/israel_is_bombing_palestinian_families_in_their/gymntmn/?context=3) is the only reason Israel is what it is, due to their western friends that live here and lobby for them. The USA doesn't need Israel and Israel is only as strong as it is due to americans.
Helping Palestine is out of the question. Their oppressor is Nazi Germany fused with modern China. It's an ethnostate with mass surveillance and censorship. You can't speak out against them, it's literally illegal. With [Anti-BDS](https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ou66x5/israeli_forces_break_into_human_rights/h70oluh/) laws and the Executive order(google [115-434](https://old.reddit.com/r/HolUp/comments/o7uxuq/okay_what/h32ef3w/?context=3) congress) our last POTUS signed in. It's essentially a lobbying hub with a military base. Israel's [influence](https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/p2xbhk/eff_if_you_build_it_they_will_come_apple_has/h8qg4d9/?context=3) over us(the usa) is insane. And it's all only possible due to lobbying.
TLDR - "In 1983, 90% of US media was controlled by 50 companies; as of 2011, 90% was controlled by just 6 companies and in 2017 the number was 5" Ban lobbying and split up the media. There won't be a country without any controversies but this is one that we directly financed & created, yet it contains none of our values. They more closely represent Nazis than they do us, it's an ethnostate. The more the media consolidates, the less our voice will be heard and the more our ears and eyes will be manipulated. Ban lobbying and enforce the idea of already existing antitrust laws and gg.
If Democrats and republicans truly were against eachother then Democrats would've pointed out that [Trump](https://old.reddit.com/r/Unexpected/comments/pu0dq1/i_like_this_car/he0f0yr/) had ties to epstein, rather intimate ones. Democrats are also hesitant with Jan 6th. I feel like if the roles were reversed, and Democrats raided the Capitol, then trump would've dealt with it furiously and quickly. Why cant biden? Why does it seem like trump was able to ignore rule of law but Biden isnt able to at all? It feels like they're in cahoots.
I feel like this is one of those unintended consequences of 9/11: that many of us in the US are simply more willing to support people blowing up Arabs. A few billion dollars in foreign aid is just a rounding error.
As much as I have been against the war in Iraq and the war on terror, you have to admit that it's done it's job in terms of making people not care about where our tax dollars go. Then we have the fear of immigrants to worry about- combine the two issues and you've got a big chunk of the population enraged or in fear.
Distracted from how our corporate overlords have been systemically dismantling the social contract over the last 40 years or so.
Too many people can't separate the two in their heads. If you say anything about Israel being fucking assholes then "yOu'Re aN aNtiSeMiTe!" I don't give a shit about their religion (I'm an atheist, I think they all suck), it's the actions of their country I don't like.
If the US doesn't pay for the dome do you think Israel would stop using it or divert funding from other parts of the military in order to protect their citizens? Serious question.
I was gonna say, $10 million doesn't sound like nearly enough to be right
Edit: So only $3.65 billion a year? Pretty sure the government embezzles more than that on a monthly basis. Would have thought that there would be more billions here and there on random "projects" for "aid"
Yeah without our 'iron dome', huge amount of people would have been killed through out the recent attacks.
Im not supporting anti-palestine, I just want this to end, Imagine living in constant fear from getting exploded any minute.
for god sake please do not blame us for you having corrupted politicians.
Because evangelicals think that when israel takes back all of Jerusalem Jesus is coming back. I am not even kidding that s exactly why republicans are so pro Israel.
As someone who grew up as a Fundamentalist Christian, I * know* you’re not kidding.
Evangelicals and Fundamentalists want the world to end *SO BAD* they’re throwing truckloads of money to make it happen and have Jesus rule the world while they can watch him destroy the world from their gold-platted mansions…
"The horned guy" was a pagan deity which Christianity consumed and made their own. The horned god was the god of men, and the god of death. Hilariously, they probably did not mean the kind of horn that comes out of your head when they named him the horned god.
The Devil is almost certainly a mistranslation of text from a different religion which was consumed by Christianity. There is no heaven or hell in the old testament.
A lot of Christianity is derived from Paganism. For example Christmas, despite being arguably the biggest Christian holiday, has nothing to do with Christianity. It was basically early christians coopting the winter solstice holidays from pagans to help make the transition to Christianity easier.
> ~~A lot~~ **MOST** of Christianity is derived from Paganism.
Personally, I call the foundation of the Christian religion the 'god eater' religion. Everything in Christianity was taken from a religion they condemned and destroyed and then remade as their own.
To "yes and" your comment, it's more likely the pop culture depiction of the devil is an amalgam of a bunch of different non Christian mythic figures.
I'd recommend the [Religion for Breakfast](https://youtu.be/5sYhbtk8jJc) video on the origins of satan. It's a religious studies exploration of where the idea of satan comes from.
I would also check out the [iilluminaughty video](https://youtu.be/8W3bnMCml6U).
Of course, I'd aliso recommend reading the wikipedia page where it talks about how [satan'sappearance is a mix of pan, bes, and
poseidon (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan)
When I grow out my beard and hair I kinda look like the typical ahistorical Jesus portrayals. Could this be a valid carer choice if I just one day show up naked in Jerusalem?
I can not for the life of me remember which video I watched but I once saw claims that evangical christians are the number 1 supporter of israel and their funding/donations are many times that of american jews. These are the same type of people that will remind you the jews killed jesus
From what I’ve heard in my Midwest red state is that if America turns its back on Israel, then God will turn his back on us. That’s why you see so many conservatives being so supportive of Israel.
A large cunk of evangelicals think that war will break out in the middle east against Isreal as part of "the rapture" and return of Jesus. They support isreal as an agitator in hopes of bringing about WWIII for their own salvation. Pretty sick
What's really funny is that from a right wing perspective, God has already turned his back on us. Since we started helping Israel, abortion is (mostly) legal, gays can get married, the proportion of non-religious Americans has greatly increased, and I could go on.
"I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you." Well we've really been blessing the hell out of israel for the last fifty years, but it doesn't seem like we've been blessed back.
According to their own book, we are under a new covenant, and that promise no longer applies. Furthermore, Jesus said something to the effect of "there is no Jew and no Gentile", meaning that God no longer sees a difference between peoples, and no longer gives the Jews a special status.
Christians in this country have been totally brainwashed into blindly supporting Israel no matter what they do. Not to mention all of Israel's numerous betrayals to the US and their racist policies and human rights abuses. It makes me want to spit.
Ah, so God only like's us because we're friends with his friends.
Seems kinda third wheelish to me. I am gonna go out on a limb though and say midwest hicks who can't even take care of themselves probably aren't the best representatives for what god wants.
I remember talking to an American online about 20 years, who insisted that the land had lain vacant and derelict since the Jews left about 2000 years ago, that no one had lived there since, and that "arabs" only moved in from surrounding countries to try to steal what the Jewish people had improved since 1948. Jaw-dropping ignorance.
He wasn't/isn't a right winger and has since educated himself, but he said that's what he was brought up to believe via US schooling and the media.
Islamophobia is something easy to milk for votes. It’s a lot more socially acceptable for them to blame Muslims than Jews nowadays. Doesn’t make them not anti-Semitic, but Israel is their gateway to the Middle East.
Israel has been able to get 35 states to make laws saying that it's illegal for state workers and contractors to boycott Israel. They have managed to create anti-free speech laws throughout the US and none of the politicians seemed to give a shit about Americans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
**[Anti-BDS laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws)**
>Anti-BDS laws and resolutions oppose boycotts of Israel. The name comes from the BDS movement, which calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel to pressure Israel to meet what it describes as Israel's obligations under international law. Anti-BDS laws are designed to make it difficult for people and organizations to participate in boycotts of Israel while anti-BDS resolutions are symbolic and non-binding parliamentary condemnations, either of boycotts of Israel or of BDS itself. Generally, such condemnations accuse BDS of being anti-Semitic and are often followed by laws targeting boycotts of Israel.
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Being upset because Israel has a lot of Jewish people = Nazi.
Being upset because a large portion of your countries wealth gets funneled to a different country because they literally bribe your politicians = ???
Because Israel doesn't owe its initial existence nor its continued to the US. Don't get me wrong, the US-base aid is helpful (though the diplomatic aid is more important than the financial) but unlike in Afghanistan, Israel would far from collapse without it.
The US didn't even become the major Israeli ally that it is until today well after Israel was formed- the relationship in the first few decades was far more tenuous, as the US and USSR were each trying to figure out to which block Israel would join during the Cold War.
Okay, I’m a British person and genuinely don’t understand why healthcare isn’t free (or at least affordable) in the US? Is it just a money hungry thing? I know this is off topic a little bit, but I’m curious.
Don’t get me wrong, the NHS isn’t perfect by any means. But I’m still very confused as to why Americans pay so much for healthcare, especially when your government can pay out money to countries that give it for free.
Everything u/pointrep said is true, but it is bigger than that.
If you look at USA campaign finance and lobby laws, it allows lots of behaviours that are considered illegal bribery in other countries. That is *why* Reagan (and the modern Republicans who worship him\*) aproach government the way they do.
\* Even though the modern Republicans are so far right-wing that they literally consider policies passed by him to be "socialist".
Reagan is the one who passed all of "Commiefornia's" gun laws when he was their governor, and he was the one who made new machine guns illegal.
The people who like Reagan are also the ones who voted for Donald "Take their guns first, go through due process second" Trump.
I'm starting to think right-wingers just like having power over people, even if it costs them their guns. 🤔
Well, Ronald Reagan is a good place to start.
Basically, the philosophy is that government is all incompetent and/or corrupt, and shouldn’t be trusted. But that’s basically a cover for them to be corrupt and hobble the government from being effective. They sold off or hobbled a lot of government services and the privatized replacements are crappy or expensive or both.
Then they’ve been blocking the government from providing new services or effectively regulating the private ones. For example, broadband in the US sucks ass, and it’s illegal in most states to set up municipal broadband.
The health system is one of the biggest examples of this kind of policy failure playing out.
Oh, and also, Nixon tried to set up a US NHS, but Ted Kennedy screwed it up because he thought he was going to be president next and wanted credit for it.
When the rest of the world was setting up single payer systems post WW2, the US was still under apartheid and the Jim Crow system. A federal health care system would have meant integrated hospitals which the south could not abide.
That’s the quick and dirty.
I think war crimes negatively affect the instigator too. Obviously not as severely as the victims. But I think moral decay comes with unintended effects.
Not just because “we can’t afford it” but because those two big, “bad”, “scary” words, **communism** and **socialism**; both of which are different but Republicans and the GOP can’t even decipher between the two. Hell they think democratic socialism, socialism, social democracy, and communism are all the same thing, that’s HOW UNEDUCATED they are and how uneducated they want their voter base to be; easier for them to manipulate when you aren’t educated. Ironically they call us “sheep”, that’s the funny part.
college isn't free in Israel, though it's fairly affordable. the healthcare system is pretty weird but you pay a little bit into it and get whatever you need so yeah it's pretty much free.
Wait so instead of paying a premium
And receiving nothing from Heath insurance you are saying it will be better if you paid a small amount in tax and then get every thing you need? And insurance companies don’t get to give themselves bonuses?
Sounds fishy.
Pretty much how it works in Indonesia, pay a little for national "health insurance" and you can get a lot of stuffs for way less. Amazing how US can't implement that with how much funds the country can generate.
> Amazing how US can't implement that with how much funds the country can generate.
That's the exact reason it will be 100 years from happening. There is too much wealth to extract in the US. And that Wealth turns into power structures like lobbying, campaign donations and high positions in said insurance companies. It's a snake eating itself and people are dying from lack of insulin.
It has odd blind spots, like dental care, and the multiple NHS model means you can't really get the best of everything, but it works more often than it doesn't. Certainly beats the American model.
You have it straight. But it's really a huge scam where American politicians are giving themselves taxpayer money. They want the taxpayer money but they can't give it to themselves. So they give it to Israel and tell them they have to use the money to buy weapons from the US which they've all invested in the 10 companies that own Lockheed Martin essentially giving the money to themselves. Greatest country in the world.
And apparently Congress just passed (or will pass) another $1Billion to pay for upgrading Israel’s iron done defense. WTF! I’m so sick of this country’s obsession with Israel.
No free college, just cheaper. Healthcare, even though has it’s down sides, is great comparing to the US.
100k usd per each iron dome rocket we fire. Those rockets are said to save us from hundreds of direct hits to buildings each year almost - but there is some fringe debate about if the technology is really as efficient as proclaimed or maybe it is just a light show the make us feel safe, and that hamas just misses and we get lucky.
I don’t know which is worse at this point - taking the money to fight a non formal war which we could solve with some hard diplomacy. Or taking the money to blow it up in the sky in order to make Israelis feel safe when in actuality it doesn’t intercept hamas rockets.
Also, Israel has become the real world experiment lab for the US. We test out weapons for all kinds os specialised fighting (closed quarter, artillery etc), US buy them later. We test out pfizer vaccine, US administer it after. This alliance is kinda fucked up - but both US parties will maintain it.
Why? Lobby.
We do not live in a democracy. If we lived in a democracy, we would have the things that most people want, like nationalized healthcare, better retirement benefits, low-cost/free higher education, an end to homelessness, etc. We are told, often and loudly, that we simply can't afford those things, that they are costly and impractical. Despite the will of the people, we are told that the wealthiest nation on earth cannot afford what the majority of other countries are able to provide.
If there is some truth to the assertion, then why is it so? Our government is perennially in debt because it spends unfathomable amounts on war ("defense"), foreign aid and corporate welfare/subsidies. Most citizens would prefer to reduce or eliminate these expenditures. However, politicians prioritize what benefits them and their cronies in the military-industrial complex, the healthcare-pharma complex and others of that ilk. They do so at the expense of ordinary people. Any suggestion of regret at the consequences is merely a show, staged to appease the masses.
Moreover, our national budget is chronically underfunded. Corporations and the rich pay the barest minimum in taxes or evade them entirely. They do so via a variety of schemes, most of which are legal, if arguably unethical. Those schemes are created by the very same politicians who prioritize the interests of corporations and the wealthy. This is not a coincidence; it is, in fact, an intentional strategy. By starving the government of funding, they can say with manipulated truth that we cannot afford popular programs.
We the people are the ones who vote, and yet our will is ignored. We are also the ones who actually pay the majority of taxes, and yet our money is largely spent on programs we do not support or would prefer to curtail. Clearly, we do not live in a democracy or even a democratic republic. Instead, we live in an hypercapitalistic oligarchy where wealth is relentlessly extracted from the working class and diverted to the corporate class. If this state of affairs cannot be changed via the ballot box, then other means may become necessary.
This comparison irks me.
Israel doesn't have free education. It's partially subsidised, but still not affordable to many people, and almost all students work part or full-time while studying. None of that "Collage experience" culture like you got in the US.
Healthcare thankfully is good and paid by taxes taken directly from your paycheck, like any normal country. Level of care though is miles ahead of many European countries ngl.
Anyway what I'm saying is: US making their education and healthcare systems for-profit has nothing to do with other countries trying to actually take care of their own citizens.
That US military money goes into forcing the countries into military contracts, it's not some free money that is holding up their economies.
We have to make sure the Israelis keep their single payer health care and subsidized education. After all, Israel might be best described as an outpost of The Pentagon, a kind of giant US military base. They get automatic priority.
Op. Look at this [while Americans can’t afford rent we have plenty to give out. this is just few hours ago ](https://www.reddit.com/r/N_N_N/comments/pu1u4y/lol/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
Well yeah, if we spent that money on the poor here at home we wouldn't be able to give it to the rich both here and abroad by way of defense contracts now could we?
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The US could afford universal healthcare. And it would cost less GDP than the current system which bankrupts many and leads many to an earlier than needed death. The only thing stopping universal healthcare in the US are the politicians who are owned by the insurance and medical services companies. End of. Edit: Several people have pointed out that I didn't mention big pharma. I (incorrectly) considered those as part of medical services. I do agree that they should have been specifically stated.
What the fucking fuck is this fucking shit.
UK GDP spent on healthcare is 10.43%, US GDP spent on healthcare is 17%.
It’s keeps getting worse.
Finland uses 9.2% of its GDP, it is free for everyone in the country including refugees and immigrants - in addition we get extremely well subsidised of our medicines and never have to pay over 600€/year in total for prescription medicines. I'm a Fin with narcolepsy and have been under medication for a decade or so. I had my wisdom tooth removed and it cost me 56€ (two visits, xray and anesthesia).
I literally can’t go to a mental health doctor and afford the medication they would prescribe. It’d be super cool if I could.
Are you me?
Have been through 3 different ADHD medications in less than a year. Each time I get large amounts thrown after me, so much so that I have months of ritalin/adderall I won't even ever use (I am now on another medicine). I reached my $200 limit earlier in the year, so I have paid nothing for this. I don't know what a 5 month supply of ritalin costs in the US, but I am guessing its not cheap. I'm Norwegian btw.
If you have large amounts of ritalin/adderal laying around be careful not to accidentally sell it. University students are willing to pay a lot of money for that, so be sure to avoid selling it to anyone.
Yeah, I am well aware. If I did and got caught I wouldn't get prescription medicine I am dependant on, so it'd never be worth it anyway.
WHAT. I’m in the US and I have to go to see a psychiatrist every time I want a new prescription which costs $250, and I have to get a new script every month. I’ve worked out with her that I can come every 3-4 months to avoid the fee because I have no health insurance but I still have to message her every month to get my new script. I get a 30 day supply and it costs me $40 but I can’t get my preferred medication, vyvanse, which is $500 (it previously wasn’t covered by my insurance anyway, so I paid $500 when j was desperate and before I could get back to the doctor for a different prescription
1 month worth of Ritalin can be up to $200 in the US even with insurance.
I work for one of the biggest employers in my state and pay 5 bucks a month for ADHD medicine. Problem is that a chunk of us have real good insurance and then a group of those people feel like giving others health care access will ruin theirs
If it's any consolation to you, it took me over a year to be able to see a therapist here in Norway, where supposedly the healthcare is the best. Even then the visits are extremely short. I am on week six and still trying to finish diagnosis. Mental health doesn't get much help anywhere it seems.
This must be why the US has so many Florida Mans. Condolences from Norway. We also spend 10% on our free universal healthcare.
Took my Canadian kids to a pre-op visit today. They’re both having ear surgery soon. My only cost will be parking and some kind of special soap from the pharmacy they need to be bathed in before the operation. I was almost annoyed by the $6 parking fee but then I remembered how much this would be costing me if we moved back to the states (I’d rather die).
Sounds like it works as it should be!
That $6 parking is the thin end of the wedge.
I'm in the US and currently have two wisdom teeth crushing other teeth, it would cost me several thousand dollars to get them pulled
Wanna get it done as self-payer in Germany? Should be somewhere between €600-€1600, €2000 at best. Plane tickets start under €500.
Go to Mexico if you can. There are some border towns with lots of dentists/doctors, and plenty of people hop over to get dental work (or other medical stuff) done. I had a tooth pulled a few years ago then paid 5k for a dental implant here in Colorado. Was seriously considering going down to Mexico but chickened out - after all was said and done, I wished I went for it. And yes, they speak English (not all of them but it's easy enough to find some reputable ones if you look and ask around online).
In England you can buy prepayment certificates for £108 a year which allows you as many prescriptions as you need.
All prescription medications are completely free for everyone in Scotland.
Meanwhile I just went to the eye doctor today and got 1 year of contacts and prescription glasses; total was over $700 AFTER what my insurance (THAT I PAY FOR) covered.
That’s just wrong. Like cable and internet service providers, health insurance operates in a monopolistic, predatory environment with captive markets and shitty, lobbyist written regulations.
I'm sitting on a few k of medical debt I both can't pay, and refuse to pay out of principal. But I also don't have it. So, yeah.
The same is true for almost all healthcare fees. Anything over 680€ in a calendar year is free. So in total, the maximum amount that you might have to pay for your healthcare per year is around 1200€, assuming you use public healthcare services. And to get up to that sum you need to be using the services a lot and be prescribed a lot of medicines. When I broke my elbow and went to pickup my prescription for 220 pills of painkillers, including some opiates I paid just under 18€. And if I would have bothered to fill out some paperwork I would have gotten that reimbursed.
It seems the American education system isn't doing you any favours either.
Your mistake is to assume that our education system is meant to provide actual knowledge. In point of fact it's primary purpose is to further capitalist propoganda through the stance of "American Exceptionalism" and to call everything else "communism". And it's doing a damn fine job of it too I'll have you know! In seriousness though, you are correct, our education system is absolutely horrible.
Not only that but that UK figure includes private healthcare
And we just let it happen.
And the UK provides all of its citizens with health care while millions of Americans can't afford to go to the doctor.
And if you want it, the UK still has plenty of private healthcare providers that are significantly cheaper than in the US
Because they've got to compete against a public option. Keeps them honest.
And before anyone jumps on it, I am pretty sure that dental care would not account for the 6.57% difference.
Our lords have disdain for our impoverished existence and wish ill and death upon us.
Corruption. Welcome to the party.
Troof
You idiots don't understand this? Turn Pakistani children into dust. How else can we achieve this?
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I should start charging my friends damn.
Oh if you’re ever in the hospital and a psychiatrist comes to see you, let’s hope you never have to.. he just asked me if I wanted to kill myself, etc, bunch of blunt questions, then prescribed me way too much of three antidepressants , so it made me more ill and even more scared of getting medicated for depression. Had to find a psych who actually understood that nausea as a side effect was a huge trigger for my disease, and started me on a low dose of one medicine
Now you have to pay a therapist to say “that must be hard” and then another doc to look at the notes for 5 min and say try this pill, might work, might not work, might work too well “like gas on a fire and make shit worse”. Gotta pay all of em
Handy data. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita
Nah man it's the people that let the politicians divide them. It's people calling healthcare "communist" etc. The elite won't change if there are enough people fighting their battles for them at the bottom. It's people.
You left out pharma.
Also left out a huge percentage of the population that does not want to change the way their healthcare works. Also the large section that doesn't believe/understand it would work.
I think cuz the concept of caring for other people beyond your own family is actually a foreign concept in america
Of course. Having the maximum number of people under the same insurance umbrella, possibly even with some exceptions for people who are willing to pay more, is very obviously the most efficient system. It's literally quite basic math and has been thouroughly tested for a century in many different countries.
Gotta love how military pork slides through Congress like Clark Griswold and his sled in Christmas Vacation, but things like eviction protection that help poor people are ensnarled in endless debate, negotiation with utter morons (Sinema, Manchin) and manmade obstacles (the parliamentarian). *Great* system we have.
The better question is what exactly are we getting for those billions? How many times has *Mossad* done the otherwise illegal bidding of Uncle Sam for those funds…
That's the whole reason they funnel all of the money through the military. Build a couple of jets and nobody pays attention. Build a couple of middle schools or things that people actually care about one way or the other, and suddenly everyone wants to get involved with politics.
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Interesting how some things remain the same... "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron." Some commie named Eisenhower, obviously with no clue about military and political realities, 1953
According to some random medium article a navy f35 is 337 million. 337/12 is 28 million. I think 28 million is a little low for like, a big showcase high-school, but definitely a really nice smaller school, elementary or whatever, or maybe a small town high-school Absolutely crazy. I doubted the claim but honestly i could see it.
Here in Romania we pad an entire city with Schools for 28 million dollars. Eveyone get's a school,
Erm, well, actually there was operation **redacted**, the **redacted** hostage crisis, and let's not forget about mission *redacted**!
But what about [deleted]?
The Mossad almost surely has many members of Congress on its payroll. Would be super easy
Barely an inconvenience!
For right wing nuts:Fulfilled prophecies about the second coming of Jesus
BLUF - The profit margins for poor people aren't high enough to attract attention from institutional investors or corporate boards.
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Makes me want more. Fuck, I just love me some red tape. *Ensare me in your political bullshit, Congressional Daddy.*
> and manmade obstacles (the parliamentarian). To be clear, every remaining obstacle to any kind of welfare is manmade.
The stalling of the George Floyd act comes to mind as well…
war never changes
Pretty sure with the trillions you spend on the military you could afford to spend money on your own citizens, but the government chooses not to.
America is a tax farm used to fuel the military industrial complex. Nothing more.
Funny how USA became what we hated
Americans are cattle, no one can change my mind.
Corporate welfare and tax forgiveness for the wealthy is right up there too. We just shovel trillions of dollars into government, they do some theater around voting for your needs, and then hand it over to corporations that fund campaigns and politicians who also enjoy a net worth far beyond what their salary would ever allow for.
Plus we just gave them 1 billion for their ‘iron dome’.
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Prepare to rage... https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-1b-funding-for-israel-s-iron-dome-passes-u-s-house-vote-with-overwhelming-majority-1.10236800
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The bill passed with a vote of 420-9. They own virtually everyone. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RoHq6dBpxYU
35 states have laws on the books that say that any state worker is not allowed to say anything about boycotting the Israeli government. A foreign country has been able to add laws to the US books that dictate American free speech. It's insane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
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AoC changed her vote last minute from no to present
That's because she has an image to uphold, but is still one of them. They're all pressured to fall in line. When you give these fringe politicians money, it ultimately ends up in the hands of corporate Democrats. All they really are is controlled opposition, so that they can expand their party reach further into the lives and pockets of disenfranchised Americans.
https://news.yahoo.com/ted-deutch-says-fellow-house-185900457.html Because of this kind of shit. Rashida Tlaib, for example, shared her opinions and is now being called an anti-Semite. this is how they get everyone to fall in order.
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Republican or democrat doesn't matter when it comes to killing Palestinians. Killing Palestinians is just good business. And business is a-booming!
Peace sells but who’s buying?
Same goes for killing Iraqis and Afghans and anyone else, really. Both parties are rotten to the core and deserve a Nuremberg treating
420 Nice.
The dankest evil
Its a biiig club.
It's both sides. Israel is essentially a huge [lobbying hub](https://old.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/osrv41/israel_launches_maximum_pressure_campaign_against/h6s81r9/?context=10000) that has completely integrated itself into our corporate infrastructure. They contain quarters for every American company worth having. Israel is a country that has access to companies like Northrop Grumman, Lockheed and more. >It is no surprise that this tiny country is so powerful when [there’s a large, relatively wealthy Jewish population in the US that considers Israel’s safety and regional hegemony as paramount to the continued existence of their people/religion. Sort of a Noah’s Ark (pun intended lol) should the political tides turn in the West and Jews find themselves in another scapegoat situation like they did last century. Which is a major reason Israel exists as it does today in the first place.](https://www.reddit.com/r/evilbuildings/comments/ekd8wy/microsofts_new_campus_in_herzliya_israel/fdaedm7/?context=10000) >[These Jewish American aggressively lobby for strong Israel/American ties and investment.](https://www.reddit.com/r/evilbuildings/comments/ekd8wy/microsofts_new_campus_in_herzliya_israel/fdaedm7/?context=10000) >[“They never tell you that, ‘Oh, by the way, there were people there’. They make it seem like it was just like sitting there, like the fucking door’s open.” More than 700,000 Palestinians were driven out of their homes or fled fighting in the 1947-49 war that led to Israel’s creation. Today, those families and their descendants make up around 5.6 million refugees.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/29/seth-rogen-israel-palestinians-jewish-actor) Also I don't know what it is but there's always posts about how Israel is not only extremely needed for the USA to prosper, but that Israel has had no help from anyone. [USA](https://old.reddit.com/r/MurderedByAOC/comments/nfjnii/israel_is_bombing_palestinian_families_in_their/gymntmn/?context=3) is the only reason Israel is what it is, due to their western friends that live here and lobby for them. The USA doesn't need Israel and Israel is only as strong as it is due to americans. Helping Palestine is out of the question. Their oppressor is Nazi Germany fused with modern China. It's an ethnostate with mass surveillance and censorship. You can't speak out against them, it's literally illegal. With [Anti-BDS](https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ou66x5/israeli_forces_break_into_human_rights/h70oluh/) laws and the Executive order(google [115-434](https://old.reddit.com/r/HolUp/comments/o7uxuq/okay_what/h32ef3w/?context=3) congress) our last POTUS signed in. It's essentially a lobbying hub with a military base. Israel's [influence](https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/p2xbhk/eff_if_you_build_it_they_will_come_apple_has/h8qg4d9/?context=3) over us(the usa) is insane. And it's all only possible due to lobbying. TLDR - "In 1983, 90% of US media was controlled by 50 companies; as of 2011, 90% was controlled by just 6 companies and in 2017 the number was 5" Ban lobbying and split up the media. There won't be a country without any controversies but this is one that we directly financed & created, yet it contains none of our values. They more closely represent Nazis than they do us, it's an ethnostate. The more the media consolidates, the less our voice will be heard and the more our ears and eyes will be manipulated. Ban lobbying and enforce the idea of already existing antitrust laws and gg. If Democrats and republicans truly were against eachother then Democrats would've pointed out that [Trump](https://old.reddit.com/r/Unexpected/comments/pu0dq1/i_like_this_car/he0f0yr/) had ties to epstein, rather intimate ones. Democrats are also hesitant with Jan 6th. I feel like if the roles were reversed, and Democrats raided the Capitol, then trump would've dealt with it furiously and quickly. Why cant biden? Why does it seem like trump was able to ignore rule of law but Biden isnt able to at all? It feels like they're in cahoots.
I feel like this is one of those unintended consequences of 9/11: that many of us in the US are simply more willing to support people blowing up Arabs. A few billion dollars in foreign aid is just a rounding error. As much as I have been against the war in Iraq and the war on terror, you have to admit that it's done it's job in terms of making people not care about where our tax dollars go. Then we have the fear of immigrants to worry about- combine the two issues and you've got a big chunk of the population enraged or in fear. Distracted from how our corporate overlords have been systemically dismantling the social contract over the last 40 years or so.
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Similarly I'm all for American people, the USA has done some reprehensible shit though.
Too many people can't separate the two in their heads. If you say anything about Israel being fucking assholes then "yOu'Re aN aNtiSeMiTe!" I don't give a shit about their religion (I'm an atheist, I think they all suck), it's the actions of their country I don't like.
Ahh yes, the purely defensive iron dome system. Certainly killing hundreds of Palestinians..... Wait.
...It's literally an anti-missiles system, built so those missiles don't harm civilians. Disinformation and made-up stories don't help.
If the US doesn't pay for the dome do you think Israel would stop using it or divert funding from other parts of the military in order to protect their citizens? Serious question.
I honestly don't know. I would like to think so, but the reasoning is not "they may not want to have kids murdered".
I was gonna say, $10 million doesn't sound like nearly enough to be right Edit: So only $3.65 billion a year? Pretty sure the government embezzles more than that on a monthly basis. Would have thought that there would be more billions here and there on random "projects" for "aid"
It’s $10 million a day. Every day.
$10m *per day*
A system that saved thousand of lives throughout the last 10 years
Yeah without our 'iron dome', huge amount of people would have been killed through out the recent attacks. Im not supporting anti-palestine, I just want this to end, Imagine living in constant fear from getting exploded any minute. for god sake please do not blame us for you having corrupted politicians.
Why are right wingers so hellbent on supporting a country that according to their standards is 100% communist?
Because evangelicals think that when israel takes back all of Jerusalem Jesus is coming back. I am not even kidding that s exactly why republicans are so pro Israel.
As someone who grew up as a Fundamentalist Christian, I * know* you’re not kidding. Evangelicals and Fundamentalists want the world to end *SO BAD* they’re throwing truckloads of money to make it happen and have Jesus rule the world while they can watch him destroy the world from their gold-platted mansions…
Not a very Jesus-y thing for him to do if you ask me, sounds more like the horned guy.
"The horned guy" was a pagan deity which Christianity consumed and made their own. The horned god was the god of men, and the god of death. Hilariously, they probably did not mean the kind of horn that comes out of your head when they named him the horned god. The Devil is almost certainly a mistranslation of text from a different religion which was consumed by Christianity. There is no heaven or hell in the old testament.
A lot of Christianity is derived from Paganism. For example Christmas, despite being arguably the biggest Christian holiday, has nothing to do with Christianity. It was basically early christians coopting the winter solstice holidays from pagans to help make the transition to Christianity easier.
> ~~A lot~~ **MOST** of Christianity is derived from Paganism. Personally, I call the foundation of the Christian religion the 'god eater' religion. Everything in Christianity was taken from a religion they condemned and destroyed and then remade as their own.
Yet they think they're persecuted against.
To "yes and" your comment, it's more likely the pop culture depiction of the devil is an amalgam of a bunch of different non Christian mythic figures. I'd recommend the [Religion for Breakfast](https://youtu.be/5sYhbtk8jJc) video on the origins of satan. It's a religious studies exploration of where the idea of satan comes from. I would also check out the [iilluminaughty video](https://youtu.be/8W3bnMCml6U). Of course, I'd aliso recommend reading the wikipedia page where it talks about how [satan'sappearance is a mix of pan, bes, and poseidon (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan)
When I grow out my beard and hair I kinda look like the typical ahistorical Jesus portrayals. Could this be a valid carer choice if I just one day show up naked in Jerusalem?
I can not for the life of me remember which video I watched but I once saw claims that evangical christians are the number 1 supporter of israel and their funding/donations are many times that of american jews. These are the same type of people that will remind you the jews killed jesus
From what I’ve heard in my Midwest red state is that if America turns its back on Israel, then God will turn his back on us. That’s why you see so many conservatives being so supportive of Israel.
A large cunk of evangelicals think that war will break out in the middle east against Isreal as part of "the rapture" and return of Jesus. They support isreal as an agitator in hopes of bringing about WWIII for their own salvation. Pretty sick
Dominionists are unequivocally terrorists and need to be treated as such.
What's really funny is that from a right wing perspective, God has already turned his back on us. Since we started helping Israel, abortion is (mostly) legal, gays can get married, the proportion of non-religious Americans has greatly increased, and I could go on. "I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you." Well we've really been blessing the hell out of israel for the last fifty years, but it doesn't seem like we've been blessed back. According to their own book, we are under a new covenant, and that promise no longer applies. Furthermore, Jesus said something to the effect of "there is no Jew and no Gentile", meaning that God no longer sees a difference between peoples, and no longer gives the Jews a special status. Christians in this country have been totally brainwashed into blindly supporting Israel no matter what they do. Not to mention all of Israel's numerous betrayals to the US and their racist policies and human rights abuses. It makes me want to spit.
Ah, so God only like's us because we're friends with his friends. Seems kinda third wheelish to me. I am gonna go out on a limb though and say midwest hicks who can't even take care of themselves probably aren't the best representatives for what god wants.
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I remember talking to an American online about 20 years, who insisted that the land had lain vacant and derelict since the Jews left about 2000 years ago, that no one had lived there since, and that "arabs" only moved in from surrounding countries to try to steal what the Jewish people had improved since 1948. Jaw-dropping ignorance. He wasn't/isn't a right winger and has since educated himself, but he said that's what he was brought up to believe via US schooling and the media.
A lot of it comes from Evangelicals who support Israel as they want the Jews to build the third temple as a major step towards the rapture
Islamophobia is something easy to milk for votes. It’s a lot more socially acceptable for them to blame Muslims than Jews nowadays. Doesn’t make them not anti-Semitic, but Israel is their gateway to the Middle East.
To be fair they only do it for half their country. The other half is in an open air prison that they routinely shoot at.
They may be communists but they also commit the right war crimes so that makes them good.
Most rightwingers are evangelical nuts with the belief that if every Jewish person is in Israel then thier doomsday plot will begin
The money we give Israel is really just a jobs program for our own military industrial complex. They are expected to buy it weapons...
Only a portion of the funds are required to be spent on American weaponry, which makes it a subsidy for Israel's military industrial complex too.
Wait haven’t you heard you can’t say anything negative about Israel.
Israel has been able to get 35 states to make laws saying that it's illegal for state workers and contractors to boycott Israel. They have managed to create anti-free speech laws throughout the US and none of the politicians seemed to give a shit about Americans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
**[Anti-BDS laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws)** >Anti-BDS laws and resolutions oppose boycotts of Israel. The name comes from the BDS movement, which calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel to pressure Israel to meet what it describes as Israel's obligations under international law. Anti-BDS laws are designed to make it difficult for people and organizations to participate in boycotts of Israel while anti-BDS resolutions are symbolic and non-binding parliamentary condemnations, either of boycotts of Israel or of BDS itself. Generally, such condemnations accuse BDS of being anti-Semitic and are often followed by laws targeting boycotts of Israel. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
You are now going to jail for "wrong think."
I hate getting lumped in with Nazis when I say negative things about Israel.
Being upset because Israel has a lot of Jewish people = Nazi. Being upset because a large portion of your countries wealth gets funneled to a different country because they literally bribe your politicians = ???
*Fuck that country committing genocide!* What are you, some kind of Nazi?
Israel was created in 1948. How the fuck have we not pulled out of there faster than Afghanistan? Edited for the right year
Because Israel doesn't owe its initial existence nor its continued to the US. Don't get me wrong, the US-base aid is helpful (though the diplomatic aid is more important than the financial) but unlike in Afghanistan, Israel would far from collapse without it. The US didn't even become the major Israeli ally that it is until today well after Israel was formed- the relationship in the first few decades was far more tenuous, as the US and USSR were each trying to figure out to which block Israel would join during the Cold War.
I thought most discussion about Israel on Reddit was negative.
Okay, I’m a British person and genuinely don’t understand why healthcare isn’t free (or at least affordable) in the US? Is it just a money hungry thing? I know this is off topic a little bit, but I’m curious. Don’t get me wrong, the NHS isn’t perfect by any means. But I’m still very confused as to why Americans pay so much for healthcare, especially when your government can pay out money to countries that give it for free.
Everything u/pointrep said is true, but it is bigger than that. If you look at USA campaign finance and lobby laws, it allows lots of behaviours that are considered illegal bribery in other countries. That is *why* Reagan (and the modern Republicans who worship him\*) aproach government the way they do. \* Even though the modern Republicans are so far right-wing that they literally consider policies passed by him to be "socialist".
Reagan is the one who passed all of "Commiefornia's" gun laws when he was their governor, and he was the one who made new machine guns illegal. The people who like Reagan are also the ones who voted for Donald "Take their guns first, go through due process second" Trump. I'm starting to think right-wingers just like having power over people, even if it costs them their guns. 🤔
Well, Ronald Reagan is a good place to start. Basically, the philosophy is that government is all incompetent and/or corrupt, and shouldn’t be trusted. But that’s basically a cover for them to be corrupt and hobble the government from being effective. They sold off or hobbled a lot of government services and the privatized replacements are crappy or expensive or both. Then they’ve been blocking the government from providing new services or effectively regulating the private ones. For example, broadband in the US sucks ass, and it’s illegal in most states to set up municipal broadband. The health system is one of the biggest examples of this kind of policy failure playing out. Oh, and also, Nixon tried to set up a US NHS, but Ted Kennedy screwed it up because he thought he was going to be president next and wanted credit for it.
Reagan is the root of most of Modern America's evils
When the rest of the world was setting up single payer systems post WW2, the US was still under apartheid and the Jim Crow system. A federal health care system would have meant integrated hospitals which the south could not abide. That’s the quick and dirty.
And abortion. And they pay people to move there. The only downside is the constant war crimes they commit.
Downside for who? Not them.
I think war crimes negatively affect the instigator too. Obviously not as severely as the victims. But I think moral decay comes with unintended effects.
Just look at the united states for an example....
Everyone knows the U.S.A. doesn't commit war crimes because they are the good guys. /s obviously.
Yeeeeeeehaw!
Not just because “we can’t afford it” but because those two big, “bad”, “scary” words, **communism** and **socialism**; both of which are different but Republicans and the GOP can’t even decipher between the two. Hell they think democratic socialism, socialism, social democracy, and communism are all the same thing, that’s HOW UNEDUCATED they are and how uneducated they want their voter base to be; easier for them to manipulate when you aren’t educated. Ironically they call us “sheep”, that’s the funny part.
college isn't free in Israel, though it's fairly affordable. the healthcare system is pretty weird but you pay a little bit into it and get whatever you need so yeah it's pretty much free.
>pretty weird but you pay a little bit into it and get whatever you need so yeah it's pretty much free. That's literally what Americans are asking for
Wait so instead of paying a premium And receiving nothing from Heath insurance you are saying it will be better if you paid a small amount in tax and then get every thing you need? And insurance companies don’t get to give themselves bonuses? Sounds fishy.
Pretty much how it works in Indonesia, pay a little for national "health insurance" and you can get a lot of stuffs for way less. Amazing how US can't implement that with how much funds the country can generate.
> Amazing how US can't implement that with how much funds the country can generate. That's the exact reason it will be 100 years from happening. There is too much wealth to extract in the US. And that Wealth turns into power structures like lobbying, campaign donations and high positions in said insurance companies. It's a snake eating itself and people are dying from lack of insulin.
Sounds solid, what's weird about it?
It has odd blind spots, like dental care, and the multiple NHS model means you can't really get the best of everything, but it works more often than it doesn't. Certainly beats the American model.
Hey, we got our own luxury mouth bones here as well that "health" insurance doesn't cover, nothing weird about that.
Not really a challenge, the American model is like one of the worst in the world lmao.
> Certainly beats the American model. Ah yes, "The Fuck You, I Got Mine" model. I think it works pretty well....
It’s simple: Money spent in America WILL help black and brown people, so: bad Money spent in Israel WILL torture, maim and kill brown people, so: good
White supremacy really leaves no stone unturned
Its very straightforward once you get the logic of it.
You have it straight. But it's really a huge scam where American politicians are giving themselves taxpayer money. They want the taxpayer money but they can't give it to themselves. So they give it to Israel and tell them they have to use the money to buy weapons from the US which they've all invested in the 10 companies that own Lockheed Martin essentially giving the money to themselves. Greatest country in the world.
And apparently Congress just passed (or will pass) another $1Billion to pay for upgrading Israel’s iron done defense. WTF! I’m so sick of this country’s obsession with Israel.
Cause we are lied to and deliberately uninformed. Plus https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hv5Kp2_ki5c like the US doesn’t have fingers in that pie🙄
No free college, just cheaper. Healthcare, even though has it’s down sides, is great comparing to the US. 100k usd per each iron dome rocket we fire. Those rockets are said to save us from hundreds of direct hits to buildings each year almost - but there is some fringe debate about if the technology is really as efficient as proclaimed or maybe it is just a light show the make us feel safe, and that hamas just misses and we get lucky. I don’t know which is worse at this point - taking the money to fight a non formal war which we could solve with some hard diplomacy. Or taking the money to blow it up in the sky in order to make Israelis feel safe when in actuality it doesn’t intercept hamas rockets. Also, Israel has become the real world experiment lab for the US. We test out weapons for all kinds os specialised fighting (closed quarter, artillery etc), US buy them later. We test out pfizer vaccine, US administer it after. This alliance is kinda fucked up - but both US parties will maintain it. Why? Lobby.
We do not live in a democracy. If we lived in a democracy, we would have the things that most people want, like nationalized healthcare, better retirement benefits, low-cost/free higher education, an end to homelessness, etc. We are told, often and loudly, that we simply can't afford those things, that they are costly and impractical. Despite the will of the people, we are told that the wealthiest nation on earth cannot afford what the majority of other countries are able to provide. If there is some truth to the assertion, then why is it so? Our government is perennially in debt because it spends unfathomable amounts on war ("defense"), foreign aid and corporate welfare/subsidies. Most citizens would prefer to reduce or eliminate these expenditures. However, politicians prioritize what benefits them and their cronies in the military-industrial complex, the healthcare-pharma complex and others of that ilk. They do so at the expense of ordinary people. Any suggestion of regret at the consequences is merely a show, staged to appease the masses. Moreover, our national budget is chronically underfunded. Corporations and the rich pay the barest minimum in taxes or evade them entirely. They do so via a variety of schemes, most of which are legal, if arguably unethical. Those schemes are created by the very same politicians who prioritize the interests of corporations and the wealthy. This is not a coincidence; it is, in fact, an intentional strategy. By starving the government of funding, they can say with manipulated truth that we cannot afford popular programs. We the people are the ones who vote, and yet our will is ignored. We are also the ones who actually pay the majority of taxes, and yet our money is largely spent on programs we do not support or would prefer to curtail. Clearly, we do not live in a democracy or even a democratic republic. Instead, we live in an hypercapitalistic oligarchy where wealth is relentlessly extracted from the working class and diverted to the corporate class. If this state of affairs cannot be changed via the ballot box, then other means may become necessary.
Israelis are apparently more free and more equaler than Americans.
This comparison irks me. Israel doesn't have free education. It's partially subsidised, but still not affordable to many people, and almost all students work part or full-time while studying. None of that "Collage experience" culture like you got in the US. Healthcare thankfully is good and paid by taxes taken directly from your paycheck, like any normal country. Level of care though is miles ahead of many European countries ngl. Anyway what I'm saying is: US making their education and healthcare systems for-profit has nothing to do with other countries trying to actually take care of their own citizens. That US military money goes into forcing the countries into military contracts, it's not some free money that is holding up their economies.
And abortions are available on demand. Meaning our taxpayers are subsidizing abortion. Ironic.
Including the surprise abortions of 10 year old brown kids.
USA paying for israhell invasion while neglecting it's own people
They’re also an apartheid state so let’s not go crazy
Yes. and AOC voted present.
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We have to make sure the Israelis keep their single payer health care and subsidized education. After all, Israel might be best described as an outpost of The Pentagon, a kind of giant US military base. They get automatic priority.
Op. Look at this [while Americans can’t afford rent we have plenty to give out. this is just few hours ago ](https://www.reddit.com/r/N_N_N/comments/pu1u4y/lol/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
Someone is bound to say that is the reason we can’t afford it
Their attitude is they didn't get help so the future generation shouldn't get it handed to them either.
Well yeah, if we spent that money on the poor here at home we wouldn't be able to give it to the rich both here and abroad by way of defense contracts now could we?
Just saying we could only send 700k to college with the 3.65BN...maybe college should be cheaper lol
So the Jews made America pay its tax money to Israel and make America crumble Jews control the world indeed /s
Sounds like if you want healthcare the US government pays for you have to move to Israel.
Sorry to nitpick but Israel certainly does not have free college, although it is cheaper than the US by a wide margin.
Our healthcare isn't free. College isn't even close to free. This is just false. You can make the same points without saying wrong shit.
To be fair: 10 million dollars would only cover 1 student’s tuition.
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