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White House weighs $100 billion for Israel, Ukraine bill; plans in flux
(www.washingtonpost.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
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I sure do care about Ukrainians right now, and we do need to get that funding back on track.
However....
That's a pretty big slap in the face for anyone hoping for student debt relief, universal healthcare, or parental leave. And told constantly it would bankrupt us. Suddenly we find 100 billion in between the couch cushions when there is even a wiff of war.
Just remember at the ballot box who was saying student loan relief is impossible: Republicans
Funny thing here is the party that voted against everything you listed as hoped for, also voted against Ukraine funding.
Just from a fiscal perspective, universal healthcare really can't be grouped in with those others. Even in countries that do public healthcare well, it represents a large chunk of domestic spending.
Even by Sanders' own estimates for the Medicare For All bill (which, for the sake of argument, I'll just accept on faith), the annual cost is three trillion dollars a year, about thirty times the cost of this aid bill. They're not really comparable, especially given that there's more than a "whiff" of war.
Still cheaper than the way we do it, so even going by a cost analysis, we'd be saving money.
But it's not about the cost, it's about siphoning money over to the big shots, and keeping healthcare tied to employment.
Those savings come from a reduction in individual spending on premiums, not reduced government spending.
Without a doubt there are ways to construct a public system that would be dramatically more efficient than the clusterfuck we have right now, but speaking strictly from the financial perspective of the government, it absolutely is a massive increase in spending (that would presumably be funded by a tax that largely replaces the premiums of today, but regardless, foreign aid is an absolute drop in the bucket compared to something like fundamentally reforming the entire health care industry)
You understand that if people were taxed for their health insurance instead of paying directly that the government would be able to supply lower rates because of collective bargaining... right?
The idea is that the increase in government spending doesn't matter because Americans won't be paying for health insurance anymore, instead paying (less) for it through taxation.
Yes you're technically correct but I think you missed the person's point
It's even worse to compare it to a one-time aid bill to a country currently fighting off an invasion (and Israel). That money supporting Ukraine literally helps everyone in the world (relatively cheaply), except aggressor Russia.
But back to universal healthcare. The US spends 4.3 Trillion dollars on healthcare. Every year. People will get sick no matter what. We're already paying that, it's just so much goes to middlemen like insurance companies that we literally pay more for worse quality healthcare.
Oh, and less families would be bankrupted and fewer people dead in the streets from preventable causes if we had universal healthcare...