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StabledGenius t1_itkuggy wrote

Can we have some health care instead?

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TurtleHermit360 t1_itkuoo7 wrote

Healthcare delivered via swarm of military drones

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anti-torque t1_itkwrik wrote

Corpsdrones?

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SidewaysFancyPrance t1_itlo4ht wrote

Corpsedrones. It's a lot cheaper to not provide the medical assistance and just go straight to recycling.

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SecondTryBadgers t1_itl2qnl wrote

I’d like to get that NEC, sit in the clinic delivering meds, flu-shots, high speed med record delivery… endless possibilities

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memberjan6 t1_itl1iyi wrote

The health status of the recipient is going to change, actually. You're not wrong!

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TheMotorcycleBoy t1_itkyxwx wrote

I know that was a joke but just in case this sort of thing starts to creep into 'mainstream thinking'...

Military spending is 3.29% of GDP. You already spend more in tax per person in the US on universal healthcare than the UK does (probably plenty of other free-at-point-of-use countries as well, I just haven't seen the stats.)

It's not the misdirection of tax dollars into the military that's the (main) problem. The problem is the exorbitant prices of healthcare and drugs in the US. The companies involved in that lucrative arrangement are not keen for any reform of healthcare service provision, and they pay / lobby / donate / propagandise to keep things as they are.

One aspect of that propagandising is to reassure US voters that the richest country in the world is not able to afford free healthcare because it's money is tied up in 'military spending' to protect all these uppity European countries while those socialist idiots waste all their resources on their universal healthcare and free higher education. It's a hollow claim. US military spending is around 3.29% GDP and most European countries its around 2%.

Sorry to get all heavy - because it's a reply to what was obviously only a light-hearted and oft-repeated quote. Just needs to be said.

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anti-torque t1_itlv74a wrote

>You already spend more in tax per person in the US on universal healthcare than the UK does (probably plenty of other free-at-point-of-use countries as well, I just haven't seen the stats.)

I ran the numbers 3 years ago, and we were spending $10.7k per capita in health care. About $6k of that was in taxes. Iirc, Switzerland paid the second most, with $7.7k--all taxes, I think, which go straight to private insurance to handle everything. And I thin the UK comes in third in per capita expenses, just under $6k, with most Euro universal systems close behind.

It wouldn't be a problem if outcomes matched the expense, as they do in Switzerland. But the US outcomes match more closely with places like Costa Rica, where they spent about $3k per capita, annually.

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TheMotorcycleBoy t1_itm4l1i wrote

At this time of year, as we approach Halloween, more than ever, we are grateful to those who do the math.

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memberjan6 t1_itl1187 wrote

Why tf do you claim to know that healthcare is a joke?

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MakionGarvinus t1_itl98d1 wrote

In the US, we have some of the highest levels of care, paired with the lowest levels of access.

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Supertrinko t1_itmymia wrote

Yeah Americans have this sort of pride in the idea that "socialist" countries have to sit in waiting rooms for hours, or on waiting lists for months. That the American system is some point of pride because you get healthcare when and as you need it.

The fact is though, that you get it so quick because most people can't afford it. If healthcare were affordable, a lot more people would use it and the waiting lists would be longer.

Some people will then make excuses to keep such a system.

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MakionGarvinus t1_itn1c1c wrote

In Canada, most hospitals around where my wife is from charge a $20-50 co-pay. That prevents people from coming in with a cold, and clogging the system just to be told to take a couple days rest. I think they do have a version of supplementary insurance that you can pay for, and get extra / 'better' care.

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Supertrinko t1_itn21hn wrote

Couldn't that be better targeted by saying "If we determine that you come to the emergency room for a non-emergency, you'll be charged the co-pay fee."

In NZ, we pay $40 for a GP consult ($80 if it's a GP you aren't registered to), but it's free if you go to the hospital and hang around in triage until they finally get to you.

I would very much like it if hospitals just said "This could have been a GP visit, so pay us $80." It would stop people just using emergency rooms as a free doctor's visit.

But free doctor's visits could also help that.

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MakionGarvinus t1_itn2d9q wrote

From what I've heard, it becomes a problem around areas with a lot of natives. $20 to 'hang out' stops that.

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Supertrinko t1_itnfme4 wrote

In NZ, it's an issue with low socioeconic groups, which so happens to be "natives".

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Nyrin t1_itm3732 wrote

We spend way, way more on healthcare than defense. If you diverted every penny from defense into healthcare, you'd see one of three outcomes:

  1. The optimistic one: modest but meaningful improvements take hold in healthcare outcomes; nothing revolutionary, but good enough evidence that dumping more money into healthcare without systemic changes can still improve things.
  2. The pessimistic one: corruption and inefficiency in distributing new influxes of funding into healthcare results in a situation where everything is even more corrupt and less efficient, and the extra money results (at least indirectly) in worsened outcomes and accessibility while accelerating the deterioration as those windfall profits are internalized.
  3. The mixed one: some small gains are offset by some small screw ups and the net impact of the monetary infusion is ambiguous, with some dimensions of healthcare getting some measurable improvements and others actually getting worse.

In all three cases, the consequences would likely be irrelevant fairly quickly because the geopolitical vacuum left by the US military vanishing would destabilize global economies (even more) and likely spark wars we no longer had any defense against.

Reducing the US role as world police and improving US healthcare need to be tackled as separate problems with different timelines.

  • For defense, we need phased handoff of accountabilities to trusted allies who step up to the plate; Russia is a really clear reminder of why the lifetimes of comparative peace (and outsourced violence) that most readers from Western countries enjoy is not a given — and with continuing pressure building from developing world population growth and climate change, the backdrop of instability isn't realistically going to improve all that much over time. If the US is going to pull back its defense spending, it needs to do it slowly and methodically. In reality, it may be better to just spend it more intelligently, which is something that e.g. semi-autonomous warfare initiatives like the drones discussed in this article could actually do.
  • For healthcare, we really need to fix the money-leaking system before we just dump more money into it. We already pay way, way more than anyone else in the world for "good but not always the best, highly inaccessible care" and we should expect vastly diminishing returns if we just throw extra funding at it. It's a lot more complicated than just wholesale switching to a single-payer system, but most of the "exponential profit machines" do need to be removed from the equation; without checks, free market is going to naturally converge towards highest cost for least-quality acceptable product, and even if that anti-capitalist sentiment is exaggerated and oversimplified there's still clearly some hard truth to it in what we see happening.

If we find a way to cross the streams and divert some incrementally and intelligently pulled back military spending into a reformed healthcare system that actually makes good use of that money? Then fantastic. But this is far, far more layered than "military bad, healthcare good, give military money to healthcare, good!" ... Which is unfortunately a prevailing sentiment.

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PopUpWindowPest t1_itmd0q8 wrote

Appalled someone would downvote this. Your argument is sound. Allow me to clarify further.
There are at least 6 entities involved in health care (maybe more). They are:

  1. Insurance companies.
  2. Tort lawyers.
  3. Hospitals.
  4. Doctors and nurses.
  5. Pharmaceuticals.
  6. The patient.
    Each and every one of the above has a dog in the fight. And they all want a piece of the profit pie. Well, maybe not the patient. He or she just wants to get better. :|
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-lv t1_ito4n1a wrote

Sad part is: You ordered them after who gets to cut their slice prior to those below - and the patient only maybe gets a treatment from what is left, if 1, 2 or 3 doesn't find a way to not share the pie and instead have the patient pay themselves (or suffer / die, which is most likely in that scenario)

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PopUpWindowPest t1_itr35hs wrote

The list wasn't really meant to show who gets the most benefit first to last. Only to list the players. If each entity were to place themselves by priority, they would likely do so.

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xkemex t1_itkxvnw wrote

Who needs health care when you have freedom ☠️🦅

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DTFH_ t1_itlqgym wrote

Nah, keep the military its funding is not what is wrong with American society. The military's funding is not the cause of our social failings, we could just fix out tax code and actually collect wealth from the wealthy to fund social services like any other functioning system that cares about its society.

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Tulol t1_itm1gu0 wrote

Lol. You should call your republican representative if you don’t have healthcare

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fredericksonKorea t1_itohrev wrote

America already pays more in taxes for healthcare than any other country.

Learn to vote, push others to vote. Republicans have voted NO in EVERY public health proposal,

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BaconRaven t1_itp766q wrote

Sure, but what's the point of being healthy living in a fascist world?

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lazyeyepsycho t1_itkvnru wrote

You could have both, but that would encourage you to be idle and lower profits.

Again i forgot the /s

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slowwPony t1_itkwogh wrote

Yeah being able to go to a doctor would turn Americans into lazy pieces of shit, but true to the American spirit we have overcome and done it regardless

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Active-Equivalent171 t1_itl95f9 wrote

How about get a job and sign up for heath insurance. I am insured through my employment. It was very easy.

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Latyon t1_itlclvg wrote

Not all employers do it. And what about self-employment? Also a lot of insurance is fucking terrible, to the point where having it is practically useless

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Snowing_Throwballs t1_itmqh4c wrote

What this brainlet you are responding to doesnt seem to get is that an employer holding vital healthcare access over your head like a carrot on a string is the issue. People are compelled to stay at shitty jobs because they have healthcare, despite the fact that they get paid like shit and have poor working conditions. If employers didnt have to provide healthcare to employees, they would have to pay their workers more and improve working conditions to retain labor. Employer provided healthcare is just another means of control. Additionally, people should not go into crippling debt just because their employer provided healthcare doesnt cover certain things. This dude's pull yourself up by your bootstraps argument is fucking stupid.

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Latyon t1_itmrex2 wrote

Yeah, I figured that went without saying. Definitely emblematic of the "fuck you, got mine, fuck you harder if you're black" mindset that embodies current Republicans.

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Supertrinko t1_itn1dh7 wrote

I was born and have healthcare. It was very easy.

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