Why does the US spend so much on money instead of education and free healthcare?

[McFuu]

The problem with America is the way we spend our money on education and healthcare.
In the American education system, we over pay administrators and principals.
I would like to see that excess money spent on hiring more teachers so that there is a lower student to teacher ratio.
When it comes to health care, we let big pharmaceutical get away with gouging patients with the cost of there medication.
I would like to see high tax penalties that they cant get out of for pharmaceutical companies who overcharge for their drugs.
I think in America, we also don't have enough doctors. This probably drives the cost of the doctors services up. My mom had an appointment and didn't even see the doctor. She just seen the medical assistant or nurse. She was told they charged the insurance company about 1000$ for her simple appointment.
Most people in America who are smart enough to be doctors want to be hedge fund managers instead and make more money. I would like to see more systems like the IBM Watson AI used to treat patients for health issues that are not as complicated to try and help save money. I would also like to see an education movement to put more people through school to become doctors and health care workers. Offer more scholarships and funding to educate more people.

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Please don't post facebook pictures as facts. This is why we have things like BLM and a Trump presidency.

Not saying that picture is wrong, but I'm not seeing an actual source there for the claim.

OT: The US is an entirely different beast than other countries. It's easy to point at some country with national health care or better school standards and say they are better. It's also easier to govern these countries which are the size of a small state with a homonogized population that culturally look for the same things.

[Nadiru]

?

Got a source? Everything I'm finding shows military getting about 600-700 bil while education is getting 70-100 bil.

In fact. The total for 2018's education budget is 59 billion. (thanks betsy devos.)
https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/b.../18summary.pdf

Here's a source. Took typing in "state spending on education" into Google.

[Shakari]

No one has free healthcare as such.
Even the people that have "free", subsidize it with taxes they pay.
Maybe if the free healthcare term would be dropped, things could actually move along towards single payer or similar system,.

Thing is yes your technically correct, any healthcare if paid for and not free BUT used in the way people mean it its paid for in a tax not directly by you or a insurance company.

But being picky about exact terminology is neither here nor there.

Personally I'm a big fan of the "free" healthcare system.

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Please don't post facebook pictures as facts. This is why we have things like BLM and a Trump presidency.

Not saying that picture is wrong, but I'm not seeing an actual source there for the claim.

OT: The US is an entirely different beast than other countries. It's easy to point at some country with national health care or better school standards and say they are better. It's also easier to govern these countries which are the size of a small state with a homonogized population that culturally look for the same things.

Would not call the UK a Homonogized population and culturally rather diverse in its outlook. The goverment makes policy and proposes this to parlement and if it passes it get implemented, the US could implement a system like the NHS in the UK nothing stopping it except for the people and the government people have to agree to it but to many usually those with money or power involved seem to hate the idea.

Most people from what I see in the US see it as "why should I pay for others healthcare", very self centred and short sited in many ways. The most important one being that even with the Tax it would be cheaper than paying for health insurance in the long run, even without the healthcare benefits.

[Orange Joe]

Here's a source. Took typing in "state spending on education" into Google.

So when it comes to federal spending it's 50-70b edu and 600-700b defense.

Then you have state and local chipping in the rest for edu bringing it up to about 600b.



Still wondering where he got the 200 bil more from.

[Ehrenpanzer]

Well we get our money from the federal reserve.

Which is not actually part of the Federal Government, or any government for that matter. #NeatFact

[Shakari]

It's always pretty comical how people throw "free" around to describe government services. "Free" is code for "everybody is helping pay for me, instead of me paying for me".

Related note, I see this trend on Facebook of people whining when victims of illness or crime have put up a GoFundMe for their bills because the government doesn't just do it for "free". As if to say that, because people are voluntarily contributing to pay those bills, we are somehow less advanced than a country that would just force contribution to pay those bills. Pretty sure that's the opposite of sanity.

Umm err no ... its NOT everyone paying for me ... its "everyone paying for everyone" ... please try and get it right....

Everyone pays everyone benifits....

[bledgor]

Seeing how much money some school districts waste on shit they never use (I know the school I attended in high school bought 30 flat-screen TVs in 2008 that are still sitting in a room without being used) or on pay increases for admins that already make a stupid amount of money I don't think more money is the solution, but rather a closer inspection on how current money is being spent.

[Nadiru]

So when it comes to federal spending it's 50-70b edu and 600-700b defense.

Then you have state and local chipping in the rest for edu bringing it up to about 600b.



Still wondering where he got the 200 bil more from.

Your math is wrong, still. Even though you have the numbers in front of you.

60
+610
-------
670

He's wrong in that we don't spend more on education than we do on defense, but you're even more far off by only citing the Federal budget for education when education is overwhelmingly funded at the state level. It's intellectually dishonest, presumably because it obliterates the position that education needs more money. Educational institutions need restructuring, not recapitalization.

[Orange Joe]

Your math is wrong, still. Even though you have the numbers in front of you.

60
+610
-------
670

He's wrong in that we don't spend more on education than we do on defense, but you're even more far off by only citing the Federal budget for education when education is overwhelmingly funded at the state level. It's intellectually dishonest, presumably because it obliterates the position that education needs more money. Educational institutions need restructuring, not recapitalization.

Total expenditures for public elementary and secondary schools in the United States amounted to $620 billion in 2012–13

That included federal and I was rounding.

[Shinra1]

The US is 5th in the entire world on education spent per student.

Try again

Then why can't 14% of the population read?

[ipaq]

The US is 5th in the entire world on education spent per student.

Try again

Source.

Try again.

[Nadiru]

That included federal and I was rounding.

Fair enough; I missed that it was total incl. federal. That said, rounding to the nearest 100 billion is inappropriate; I dunno if it qualifies as a textbook "sigfig" but that 20 billion is relevant to the discussion at hand.

[ipaq]

Please don't post facebook pictures as facts. This is why we have things like BLM and a Trump presidency.

Not saying that picture is wrong, but I'm not seeing an actual source there for the claim.

OT: The US is an entirely different beast than other countries. It's easy to point at some country with national health care or better school standards and say they are better. It's also easier to govern these countries which are the size of a small state with a homonogized population that culturally look for the same things.

EpiPen: $600 for 2 in USD, $60 for 2 in CDN. Why? Pfizer is the distributor in CDN and are not about to get killed in the media for being douchebags.

[McFuu]

Would not call the UK a Homonogized population and culturally rather diverse in its outlook. The goverment makes policy and proposes this to parlement and if it passes it get implemented, the US could implement a system like the NHS in the UK nothing stopping it except for the people and the government people have to agree to it but to many usually those with money or power involved seem to hate the idea.

Most people from what I see in the US see it as "why should I pay for others healthcare", very self centred and short sited in many ways. The most important one being that even with the Tax it would be cheaper than paying for health insurance in the long run, even without the healthcare benefits.

Not get too far into it, but the NHS was set up right after the second world war. The UK is no where near as diverse then as it is now. And pretty damn unified at that point in time. Not to mention the UK is about the size and population of the North East US, not including north of Mass which is just empty space. National health care being cheaper in the long run for the US is also incredibly speculative. President Obama's administration just spent north of a Trillion on setting up the ACA, which hasn't really brought any major positive change on a whole. Health care costs continue to rise and the system itself is not sustaining the way it was assumed. I don't even know how we would go about the government taking control of all healthcare entities in the US, or not having the private sector side of this introduce run away costs, which is already a problem.

A national healthcare system in the US is possible, but it faces massive issues in costs, from private clinics and hospitals, to medical supply costs, etc...

Like I said, it's very easy to point at a country and go, why can't the US do that. But on the same token I can point at a country and say why can't they compete with us economically. It's not really a fair comparison. People want to say it's a matter of politics, but really it's just a matter of logistics.

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EpiPen: $600 for 2 in USD, $60 for 2 in CDN. Why? Pfizer is the distributor in CDN and are not about to get killed in the media for being douchebags.

It's an excellent point, I'm not debating that health care supply costs are out of control in the US. The government should step in a place limits on supplies that go to sectors such as healthcare.
But this has nothing to do with what you quoted and what I said.

[ipaq]

Not get too far into it, but the NHS was set up right after the second world war. The UK is no where near as diverse then as it is now. And pretty damn unified at that point in time. Not to mention the UK is about the size and population of the North East US, not including north of Mass which is just empty space. National health care being cheaper in the long run for the US is also incredibly speculative. President Obama's administration just spent north of a Trillion on setting up the ACA, which hasn't really brought any major positive change on a whole. Health care costs continue to rise and the system itself is not sustaining the way it was assumed. I don't even know how we would go about the government taking control of all healthcare entities in the US, or not having the private sector side of this introduce run away costs, which is already a problem.

A national healthcare system in the US is possible, but it faces massive issues in costs, from private clinics and hospitals, to medical supply costs, etc...

Like I said, it's very easy to point at a country and go, why can't the US do that. But on the same token I can point at a country and say why can't they compete with us economically. It's not really a fair comparison. People want to say it's a matter of politics, but really it's just a matter of logistics.

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It's an excellent point, I'm not debating that health care supply costs are out of control in the US. The government should step in a place limits on supplies that go to sectors such as healthcare.
But this has nothing to do with what you quoted and what I said.

That the other guy point was invalid because he linked some image... Which happened to be:

http://www.healthline.com/health/hep...treatment-cost
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-s...-to-save-money
etc.

true.

[Hexian]

Show me anywhere in the world there is "free" healthcare.

[McFuu]

That he other guy point was invalid because he linked some image... Which happened to be:

http://www.healthline.com/health/hep...treatment-cost
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-s...-to-save-money
etc.

true.

Ohh I got you. Another big reason that countries with national health care can get meds cheaper is the government buys in bulk, they can leverage massive savings from the provider by buying med to cover the entire country. It's simpler economics on that level. But the US doesn't have that kind of system, so this doesn't occur here. I think it might with medicare or medicaid, but obviously that's a far smaller portion of the population.

Read this article a while ago, I luckily found it again...
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/...-david-cutler/

Our system has it's advantages.

[Orange Joe]

Show me anywhere in the world there is "free" healthcare.

IF we are going to get into semantics. That money you earn isn't "yours" either. It's property of the Government, they just allow you to use it as legal tender.

[Hexian]

IF we are going to get into semantics. That money you earn isn't "yours" either. It's property of the Government, they just allow you to use it as legal tender.

This has nothing to do with semantics. People throw around the terms free healthcare and believe it is actually free, which isnt true..at all.

[Orange Joe]

This has nothing to do with semantics. People throw around the terms free healthcare and believe it is actually free, which isnt true..at all.

Free as in they don't pay out of pocket. You know exactly what people mean, but just want to argue semantics as I said.