Why is Def spending OK but Healthcare not?

[zenkai]

Why is Def spending OK but Healthcare not?

OK i shortened that title but why are people ok with governments spending billions on defense but not on healthcare?

I mean you are far more likely to die from health reasons than a terrorist bomb or a commie bullet!

Surely healthcare should trump (no pun intended) all in any governments budget?

It should be the priority cause a strong healthy nation is a strong productive nation and building another 5 aircraft carriers aint gonna make a country strong or safe when another country can vaporize you from 10k miles away!!!

We do both...

[belleflop]

Why is Def spending OK but Healthcare not?

OK i shortened that title but why are people ok with governments spending billions on defense but not on healthcare?

I mean you are far more likely to die from health reasons than a terrorist bomb or a commie bullet!

Surely healthcare should trump (no pun intended) all in any governments budget?

It should be the priority cause a strong healthy nation is a strong productive nation and building another 5 aircraft carriers aint gonna make a country strong or safe when another country can vaporize you from 10k miles away!!!

Here's why.

Healthcare is VERY complicated (WHO KNEW!!!??) and spending money on health care for republicans are akin to a handout, and they HATE those.

Increasing spending in an already over budgeted and unnecessary wasteful military is MUCH easier. It's like throwing money into an incinerator!

In short. It's easier to destroy something (healthcare) than try and fix it. It's easier to throw money away (military) than allocate funds appropriately to the peoples needs.

This trend will continue to repeat itself every time republicans are in power. Failing trickle down economics and military>social spending.

[Aoyi]

Both are important, though, the perception is off. There's a couple reasons for this. One has the perception of being more "patriotic" (support our troops!), so it seems easy to get behind. In truth, every nation must spend a portion (debatable amount) of their tax revenue towards defense. The reason it has gotten so high, though, is because of the bloated defense industry. Every company wants to make money, so of course those in the defense industry are going to push for as much as possible. Our defense spending could rise to 75% of our taxable revenue and there will be companies working hand over fist to spend every last dollar of it making crap. I have a couple friends in the industry and they're always talking about the latest helicopters they're working on or other projects and it sounds exciting, but do we really need that many military vehicles pumped out every year? America! Oh yeah, patriotism. Let's keep making more because one day, we might be fighting ALL THE COUNTRIES at once, right? That's why we need to spend so much more than every other country out there.

Healthcare, in many ways, is actually more important than defense spending, but has been spun in recent years as an "entitlement". Now, entitlements aren't all bad. This one is basically saying, our citizens should be entitled to basic healthcare and services they need. Not so bad when you think about that, right? The problem is, modern day politics. In modern day politics, if a policy might hurt your corporate donors, you need to find a way to demonize it (Death panels! Higher taxes!). Politicians come up with Buzzwords designed to make something essential to the health of a society suddenly sound evil. In truth, if anything were to happen to any of their family members, they would want the best care possible. Great! I wish them the best. However, the Democrats are for healthcare right now, so Republicans need to "appear" to be against it. I doubt many of them, were you to talk with them casually, are really against healthcare, but its that perception that's important. Some of it does have to do with their distance from the working class situation. Senators make 6 figure salaries and are quite comfortable, so for some of them, its hard to empathize with the average family and ridiculous healthcare costs. They could easily pay for those nice healthcare plans out of pocket, so why can't these other people do the same with their $40,000 average household income? They must be wasting their money on illegal drugs!

Now let's also address the elephant in the room. More people could afford healthcare if the profit margins weren't so ridiculous. Both sides of the industry are guilty of this (service side and insurance side). They are in a war with each other to make the highest profits and as of yet, its going mostly unregulated (Regulations bad!). I get it, we have a related problem where one side of the isle has also demonized regulations. We need to get over that, though. Do you like paying $8 per Aspirin? Why is it $8? Well, the service provider knows that the insurer will fight that cost, so in the end, they aren't going to pay $8. The service provider starts the price ridiculously high to make sure after the negotiating, they still make a decent profit. If you don't have insurance though, you're going to pay the full $8. I'll use myself as example. I'm currently going to physical therapy twice a week. The sessions cost the insurer $290.00 each. What am I getting for that $290? One of the 3 physicians on staff will walk over to me occasionally and hand me one of 3 bands to exercise with, a ball, a timer, and, once per session, set the weights on the leg press machine. In my 90 minute workout, I get maybe 7-8 minutes of hands on interaction with them. So, they charge about $580 a week for what amounts to 15 minutes of interaction with their client and providing the use of equipment. They charge that high amount though, because in the end, the insurer will likely negotiate it down as well. As the insurer still needs to make a profit though, their premiums are high and getting higher each year. That isn't really because of "Obamacare" though. That's just do to their rising costs coming from the service side coupled with their want to make the highest profits possible.

So, in conclusion, both defense spending and healthcare spending are important. Don't trust a politician who's for one and against the other. Just realize both should be treated as essential and the actual discussion should be on how much of our tax dollars we commit to each. The amounts, at their minimum, should be what can get us to be both reasonably protected (defense) and ensure every citizen can be reasonably cared for (healthcare).

[caervek]

Why is Def spending OK but Healthcare not?

Because the government/media tricks people into believing that other countries are a threat to them, so they can get away with spending money on defense, money that goes to companies that politicians an media moguls have vested interests in.

It's easier to convince somebody that you need to use their money to protect them from an illusionary Russian/Iranian danger than to convince them you need to use their money to pay for their lazy neighbors medical bills.

[GennGreymane]

People will say "no, I dont like Def spending either," but will spend a fraction of the effort... if any at all to be in opposition of it.

Its like the whole gay marriage thing

" I dont think the government should be involved in marriage at all," but we never see much pressure to begin any actual debate for it.

[Raunchy]

If you want to pay for someone elses healthcare give them YOUR money dont ask me jerk off. You can pay as much as you wabt in taxes WITH YIUR OWN MONey dont come askin for mine.

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If you want to pay for someone elses healthcare give them YOUR money dont ask me jerk off. You can pay as much as you wabt in taxes WITH YIUR OWN MONey dont come askin for mine.
Noone on this forum is stopping you from tskinbyour own damn wallet out and payin for joe shmos healthcare

[GennGreymane]

If you want to pay for someone elses healthcare give them YOUR money dont ask me jerk off. You can pay as much as you wabt in taxes WITH YIUR OWN MONey dont come askin for mine.

- - - Updated - - -

If you want to pay for someone elses healthcare give them YOUR money dont ask me jerk off. You can pay as much as you wabt in taxes WITH YIUR OWN MONey dont come askin for mine.
Noone on this forum is stopping you from tskinbyour own damn wallet out and payin for joe shmos healthcare

Pay for your own defense, police, fire dept, schools, roads, etc.

[ParanoiD84]

Pretty sure they spend more on health care already then any other country.

Nothing wrong in spending more on the military.

[GennGreymane]

Pretty sure they spend more on health care already then any other country.

Nothing wrong in spending more on the military.

Didnt the military lose a few trillion? Like it just went poof?

[Raunchy]

pay for your own defense, police, fire dept, schools, roads, etc.

i do lib hell im the biggest stereotypical liberal shitdick faggot and I know im not payin for someone elses healthcare
/10

[cuafpr]

Answer should be simple for any conservative. One is in the constitution and the other one is not. What a lot of people do not understand is the reason they request so much money is the below

1. Congress dedicates a lot of defense spending to what are effectively jobs programs. Paul Ryan is the perfect example of this. Parts of the F-35 are built in his district
2. They tell the Pentagon to plan their budget around not 1 but 2 MAJOR conflicts at all times even in peace time.
3. About 40% of their budget is legacy cost like Veterans and Retirement pay

If you ever watch those CSPAN hearing they do it is all broken down. The real scam is #1

very good points, esp #1 pet rock projects destroy much of the DoD budget, for #2 the last quadrennial review that I was still in for had the DoD plan for 1 major conflict / front vs 2. That helped lead to the cuts that costs me my career.


as for the topic at hand, most don't trust the Gov't to run the system, look at the issues in the VA system and expand that on national civilian scale... Also a lot conservatives don't feel others should cover their health costs. I'm somewhat in that group, though my issues is if a pill cost 300.00 and suddenly we get universal health care now i only pay 5.00 for said pill, this great right? To me, no its not cause the pill is still costing 300.00 i want to know how that is justified not mask the issues of sky rocketing costs via spreading the bill around as i'm sure the pill didn't magically get cheaper, heck it likely goes up to 600 cause you wouldn't notice or care about paying 6.00 vs 5.00 per pill.

*all numbers and "math" totally made up of course.

[GennGreymane]

i do lib
/10

top kek /10

[Deleted]

Well....isn't it cheaper to shoot someone than to put them through the healthcare system?

[Raunchy]

top kek /10

Hell im the biggest lefty shitdick fag on this forum so i carry a bit more weight i suppose

[GennGreymane]

Hell im the biggest lefty shitdick fag on this forum so i carry a bit more weight i suppose

do you want to go beyond top kek?

[Zan15]

i do lib hell im the biggest stereotypical liberal shitdick faggot and I know im not payin for someone elses healthcare
/10

ever hear of medicare??
you've been paying for other people's healthcare for years and years and years with no guarantee you will either live to see your share or that medicare will still be around for you to have your share.

You also pay for govt employees healthcare every year-, every paycheck. you pay for retirees healthcare, you pay for military healthcare, you pay for vets healthcare, you pay for disabled healthcare (Medicaid/SSI), etc etc etc

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very good points, esp #1 pet rock projects destroy much of the DoD budget, for #2 the last quadrennial review that I was still in for had the DoD plan for 1 major conflict / front vs 2. That helped lead to the cuts that costs me my career.


as for the topic at hand, most don't trust the Gov't to run the system, look at the issues in the VA system and expand that on national civilian scale... Also a lot conservatives don't feel others should cover their health costs. I'm somewhat in that group, though my issues is if a pill cost 300.00 and suddenly we get universal health care now i only pay 5.00 for said pill, this great right? To me, no its not cause the pill is still costing 300.00 i want to know how that is justified not mask the issues of sky rocketing costs via spreading the bill around as i'm sure the pill didn't magically get cheaper, heck it likely goes up to 600 cause you wouldn't notice or care about paying 6.00 vs 5.00 per pill.

*all numbers and "math" totally made up of course.

People always bring up the VA but ignore Medicare, you know an even larger govt run healthcare system.
and people love medicare. people will fight to the death for medicare. people actually vote people out of office because of medicare (damn old people)

VA should have been converted to a medicare system years ago but Vets fear they will lose that "special kind of service" they get from the VA. They think they are going to get screwed so the system can never get a true overhaul because these old people (again damn old people) will vote them out of office.

TDLR damn old people

[ParanoiD84]

Didnt the military lose a few trillion? Like it just went poof?

Hmm yeah now that you say it maby, cant remember.

[GennGreymane]

Hmm yeah now that you say it maby, cant remember.

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourcei...6.5+trillion&*

[ParanoiD84]

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourcei...6.5+trillion&*

Hehe wow that's alot of money gone missing.

[HumbleDuck]

The whole country is getting fucked by a strap on. And it's not love fucking either. It's hate fucking.

Is that an argument in favor of lackluster healthcare budget or the increase in defense budget?
I'm confused.