What if USA diverted 25% from military spending and put it towards national healthcare?

[Sunnyvale TP]

I just typed a wall of text. Deleted it down to this.
Most Americans don't have the drive to do what is right for their health. Universal healthcare would be a horrible choice due to that alone. Also we need better health education for our fellow Americans.

 

[surrealworlds]

TLDR; The military will make soldiers suffer until civilians give in and raise funding again. Never ending cycle.

The MIC won a long time ago and spending will never substantially decrease. I saw this first hand during the Obama years.

This is how it works:
First you have to realize that most military programs take years or decades to be completed. Its not easy making jets and aircraft carriers.
So if you are 5 years into a huge project and spending gets cut do you trash the project, wasting all that money, time and effort? Add in the fact that any huge military contract directly contributes to civilian jobs(Boeing,Lockheed,etc) and the answer is no.

But the spending has to be cut right? So the Generals and politicians cut the spending right where it hurts. The soldiers. Pay increases get slashed, weapons budgets get tossed, ammunition gets scarce.

Then a bit later the military starts leaking stories about how our overworked soldiers dont have money for ammo. Or they are going on 4th or 5th deployments because we cant afford more recruiting. The population knows this is crap but doesnt want the soldiers to suffer(thats brothers,fathers,sisters in uniform) so the next chance we get the spending goes back up.


Like i said i saw this first hand. I was in at the end of Bushes term. Obama came in and we got the word that spending was going down. We were also preparing for a deployment to Afghanistan.

So there we were at a rifle range with 100 bullets each to "train" with before going to war. Luckily this only happened once and we realized it was just a publicity stunt to increase funding the next time around but it did happen. Just google Obama and Military ammo shortages and you can see this stuff everywhere.

 

[The Penetrator]

The usual cast of bootstrapers in here arguing against something that could actually help people who are members of the richest country to ever exist on the planet.

Switzerland? Norway? Quatar?

 

[hitcher]

Americans would still be fat as fuck

That is true. Didn't Michelle Obama at one point try to make kids healthier? Whatever happened to that? I remember this was not a popular thing amongst conservatives?

 

[hitcher]

https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2019/18_0579.htm

This is just a catastrophe. Europe is slowly getting there as well. smh

 

[hiphopnazi]

They actually do put in unless you are saying every single illegal is paid cash under the table and none of them buy anything in the US.

No, walking in and receiving health care isn't putting in but I understand what you mean.

They're also not American.

 

[Bargey]

Would 25% of military spending be enough to pay for a national healthcare system? And would that 25% military spending cut cause us to be put in danger?

How about 1 in 4 people drop their consumption of fries, burgers, ice cream and Coca-Cola? More money for everyone and way less pressure on the healthcare system.

You don’t solve systemic health related issues by throwing money at the causes and not the symptoms. You think society benefits by being able to offer way more insulin treatments, dyalysis machines and heart bypass surgeries for 45 year olds or would it be better off if people lived healthier? Ironically if more people had military training then that might be a boost to public health.

 

[Bargey]

Their big problems are obesity and a bad lifestyle. Throwing money at that won't change that culture.

Yeah you got there first but it’s really the only logical opinion, given the astronomical amounts already spent on healthcare. And the people who are spending the money aren’t really the ones that are benefiting.

 

[superpunch]

I like how all the people that just ideologically hate the military conveniently missed this:

We spend 3.5% of our GDP on the military, and 20% on healthcare (8.5% is the OECD average all of which have national healthcare systems).

Then we'd spend 2.6% of our GDP on the military, and 20.9% of our GDP on healthcare.

If we adopted a universal healthcare system and cut healthcare spending to 8.5% of GDP like is normal, we could actually use the savings to quadruple the size of our military.

 

[ShinkanPo]

Then Chinese will invade with their comunist heavy tanks 25% pluss armor.

Due to negative 25% US military fund

 

[SmilinDesperado]

I just typed a wall of text. Deleted it down to this.
Most Americans don't have the drive to do what is right for their health. Universal healthcare would be a horrible choice due to that alone. Also we need better health education for our fellow Americans.

More Americans would have "the drive" to do what is right for their health if we had a government that was actually looking out for the interests of its citizens, instead of business. You wouldn't need "drive", you would just not have a bunch of bad shit thrown in your face from birth.
Most humans do what is convenient, and a government that is interested in a healthy populace shouldn't make being unhealthy so easy.
It is crazy how many normal American products like milk, bread, and beef are banned from being sold in foreign countries, and yet, our government allows its own citizens to ingest the toxins that companies put in these foods.
This isn't just about lazy Americans filling up on Mountain Dew and twinkies, there is harmful shit in our meat, fish, supposed health bars, and vegetables.
This is business and government deciding that it's okay for us all to ingest a certain amount of poison so that they can make more money.

Universal healthcare is the only choice that makes sense, but it isn't the only the thing that needs to be addressed to fix the problem.
Healthcare, the military, education---how we think about these things is the biggest problem--these are not industries where profits should be the driving force. We spend a whole bunch of money on "fixing" problems that we created ourselves.

 

[Cherry Brigand]

Clearly a profit motive is so much better. lol. The world laughs at you.

The lion cares not when the worms laugh.

 

[SmilinDesperado]

I like how all the people that just ideologically hate the military conveniently missed this:

We spend 3.5% of our GDP on the military, and 20% on healthcare (8.5% is the OECD average all of which have national healthcare systems).

Then we'd spend 2.6% of our GDP on the military, and 20.9% of our GDP on healthcare.

If we adopted a universal healthcare system and cut healthcare spending to 8.5% of GDP like is normal, we could actually use the savings to quadruple the size of our military.

People just "hate the military" for no reason ?
Numbers alone never tell the whole story of any problem. Numbers can tell any story you want them to.
The "hate" for the military is about priorities, ethics, and general waste. It's a lot easier to see and get angry about the waste of life and money used in bombing and killing people in 3rd world countries than it is to understand and even see all the wastes that we have in our healthcare system.
At least with the waste in the healthcare system , it LOOKS like we are getting SOMETHING for our money--or that they are at least trying. The newest billion dollar drone or bomb does fuck all for me and mines on any real, material level.

 

[superpunch]

People just "hate the military" for no reason ?
Numbers alone never tell the whole story of any problem. Numbers can tell any story you want them to.
...
At least with the waste in the healthcare system , it LOOKS like we are getting SOMETHING for our money--or that they are at least trying.

We can't be basing policy on feelings.

The newest billion dollar drone or bomb does fuck all for me and mines on any real, material level.

You've been sheltered from the real world by the military. That's such a privileged thing to say.

The world that you and other westerners have been living in since the end of the Cold War isn't the real world. It's a temporary lapse in historical normalcy, like living in a nice, gated community in the middle of apartheid South Africa or something then complaining about how much the gates cost because you forgot about the dangerous outside world. The gates come down, and then you'll see the real world around you again.

Military spending is at a near historic low.

That's a byproduct of Pax Americana and a unipolar world. Pax Americana is ending and the world's becoming multipolar again. Forget cutting it. We're going to have to double it.

 

[SmilinDesperado]

Military spending is at a near historic low.

That's a byproduct of Pax Americana and a unipolar world. Pax Americana is ending and the world's becoming multipolar again. Forget cutting it. We're going to have to double it.

No, we don't have to. We could choose not to go by the same stupid playbook that makes us feel like we have to keep doing dumb shit over and over.
There is more than one way to skin a cat and we don't have to keep using the $100,000,000 custom made platinum blade to do it.
Military might is not the only, nor even the greatest power that a country like the US has.

That military spending is at a historic low of the last absurd number it was at means nothing.

 

[Sunnyvale TP]

More Americans would have "the drive" to do what is right for their health if we had a government that was actually looking out for the interests of its citizens, instead of business. You wouldn't need "drive", you would just not have a bunch of bad shit thrown in your face from birth.
Most humans do what is convenient, and a government that is interested in a healthy populace shouldn't make being unhealthy so easy.
It is crazy how many normal American products like milk, bread, and beef are banned from being sold in foreign countries, and yet, our government allows its own citizens to ingest the toxins that companies put in these foods.
This isn't just about lazy Americans filling up on Mountain Dew and twinkies, there is harmful shit in our meat, fish, supposed health bars, and vegetables.
This is business and government deciding that it's okay for us all to ingest a certain amount of poison so that they can make more money.

Universal healthcare is the only choice that makes sense, but it isn't the only the thing that needs to be addressed to fix the problem.
Healthcare, the military, education---how we think about these things is the biggest problem--these are not industries where profits should be the driving force. We spend a whole bunch of money on "fixing" problems that we created ourselves.

I do agree on a government that looks out for it's citizens. Sadly you won't find that with either party these days. Both will just tell you one thing to get a vote. Then say we couldn't make it happen but... vote for me again and I will get it done this time.

Now on universal healthcare. It would be great. But the government doesn't even take good care of the people they ship off to war. The VA is run by the government. Do you think that they will have the citizen's interest in mind if they are in charge of your healthcare? Or will they just find another way to squeeze money out of it's citizens to line the pockets of their donors smd friends?

 

[Amerikuracana]

That would be a very good idea. We have bikes and an armed populace.. Most of the rest Is just the work of lobbyists.. Which is the problem with EVERYTHING.

 

[rearnakedchoke]

Health care is important and should be a human right in a developed nation. (All nations, but that is another story) It has been so politicized in the USA, that the people that need it the most have been brainwashed into thinking it’s not important.

 

[BIKES!]

Or education. The return on investment would far out weigh any military superiority gains from dumping money at bloated government programs.

Yet private schools have operating costs at the fraction of the price of public schools yet turn out far better test scores and every other metric.

Leftist policy destroyed public education and the indoctrination of children by these leftist teachers should have consequences.

 

[BIKES!]

Health care is important and should be a human right in a developed nation. (All nations, but that is another story) It has been so politicized in the USA, that the people that need it the most have been brainwashed into thinking it’s not important.

Wah wah wah. You are so entitled like the rest of your generation it’s pathetic. Facing no adversity is why your woke mob of kids have so much time and anger on their hands.

Just being born doesn’t mean you deserve anything. Over population and a breeding class of idiots (hence why the Dems are growing) means not enough resources to go around especially when 50% of Americans don’t pay a single penny in federal income tax.