HansNZ said:
This is a false argument consistently pedalled by Americans. What you CONSISTENTLY fail to hear, although it is told to you so often is that your private system is incredibly inefficient.
The US taxpayer spends more on healthcare than taxpayers in my country do. Yet we have free universal healthcare and you don't. In the US this tax money only covers a little over a third of healthcare costs - the rest is paid for by people taking out unbelievably expensive private medical insurance.
A friend of mine in Florida spends $3,000 a year on his medical insurance - for a healthy man in his early thirties! This is ridiculous when you compare it to the average full time wage in the USA of $32,273 a year. It escapes me how anyone can afford to get sick in that country. What's more 70% of full-time american workers earn less than $25,000 a year and the average family income is somewhere around the $50,000 mark. My friend is a high earner so maybe he has a super luxurious medical plan. But even so it does make you wonder what sort of healthcare a family of four can people afford at those prices.
State run systems are VASTLY more efficient than private systems that result in runaway costs. The USA spends more than US$5,000 on every man woman and child! This is absolutely absurd. You, my American friend, spend more of your taxes on healthcare than I do. And if you are like most Americans, on top of that you probably have to take out private insurance.
For ideological reasons and because of the power of medical lobbies you have a healthcare system that is a complete disaster. You are more than welcome to your "superior" medical system.
Let me get this straight, you are saying that in a socialized medical system, the government does NOT take from the citizens to pay for the healthcare of the population? It DOES print more money and hands it out to those in need?
Now beyond the sarcasm, you don't understand that the US does not have a completely capitalistic medical system, if it did, I believe that medical care would be enormously lower. The US does have government healthcare which coupled with insurance companies have driven the cost of healthcare through the ceiling. Hospitals, doctors and medical companies have come to the understanding that the access to "collective pools" of money, i.e. Medicare and insurance companies, allowes them to charge increasingly higher rates for services, since the "pooling" effect of these organizations can handle these charges. If the healthcare system had to charge every individual for the services, and not an insurance company or government institution, then the prices would be forced down or they would go out of business.
You are correct that the US has an atrocious healthcare system, but it is not for the reason of not having universal healthcare, which will place enormous burden on the taxpayers eventually (Western European countries are not re-populating their workforce fast enough to handle the growing elderly population who are demanding more healthcare benefits, social security, etc.). Taxing me to pay for grandma is not a power proposed by my Constitution, it is a burden I endure due to the influence of socialism on my fellow men.
Homelessness is rarely caused by anything as convenient as laziness. It is usually a symptom of something such as mental illness, drug addiction, etc.
Both behaviours, no definable illness. Please show me the recent studies locating the organic nature of drug "addiction", what part of the brain is not functioning properly to cause drug seeking. These are conscious choices, not organic diseases, not to mention drug-use does not equate to homelessness, since millions have or use drugs without effect on their life.
The relatively few that are true schizophrenics are a pitiful problem, but the only alternative is forced institutionalization. Besides they are being outnumbered by the growing young societal drop-out subculture, who embody the concept of laziness.
European style socialism, i.e. social democracy, makes no claims to solve these problems. What it says is that a capitalist system aggravates them. Socialism aims to provide people with an equal playing field from which they make of their own life what they will. There is no assumption that everyone will be equal.
No it uses subjective terms such as "equal playing field", "fairness", etc. It provides such equality through confiscation of the productivity of its populace, a very moral concept. With said loot, it then doles out monies to constituents who will maintain the status quo, since they will not bite the hand that feeds. And the constituency will always vote to remove money from everyone but themselves, thereby exacerbating class warfare. This is the joy of democracy.
The idea that socialism wants to force everyone to be equal by running down run down or penalising people who achieve is largely propaganda.
A progressive income tax defines this idea.
The USA isn't currently cutting aid programmes because it isn't living up to its international obligations. It is undercontributing aid relative to other developed countries. On top of that, the aid it does give goes predominantly to a handful of countries such as Israel for less than humanitarian purposes.
What obligation does the people of the US have to contribute to foreign countries? What right do these countries have to mine and my fellow's income? Humanitarianism? You mean enforced altruism.
I understand that the US has claim to economic interests with other countries, since this promotes and stimulates economic growth, but these are in our self interest, not moral obligations as you attempt to put it. I would like to see the US halt all military interventions in foreign countries and become more isolationist. The US was not supposed to be an empire, but a country.
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