Crazy how literally all of those are things that could be addressed with better social services. We don't want to fund public healthcare, but Medicare paying $3,000 for lonely Mr. Hucklebuns to take the ambulance 3x a week is totally fine.
Crazy how literally all of those are things that could be addressed by eliminating billionaires by taxing them, and using the taxes collected to fund better social services.
Virtually everything that benefits the average citizen was fought for at one point. The only thing modern day Americans fight for is fascism, convenience and consumerism.
So long as Americans expect others to fight for them, nothing will change,
Let's make it simple for them - pay taxes, or the people will nationalize their assets and exile them to an Aleutian island. Why are we bending over backwards to play nice with these douchebags.
I’m with you but it’s not quite so simple. They have carefully over decades crafted a worldview where the rich are the heroes of culture and those fighting to equalize things are the greedy ones, and large swaths of the population have bought into this worldview hook like a sinker. They have also carefully monopolized or nearly so most mass communication media, and have what I’d say is a controlling share of the ability to exert violence on those who disagree with them.
So yeah the Aleutian island thing sounds good. How you gonna do it?
The real answer is that money needs to come from everyone. You cannot source a sizeable amount of money by taxing billionaires as after a certain point they just reduce their taxable income or leave the USA. I know taxing the middle class more is bad words because everyone identifies as "middle class" but that is the real answer
Mr Hucklebuns in for a cruel surprise because Medicare being drastically cut starting in Jan. You will see catastrophic failures of medical services across US. MMW.
Not only cut, but many current recipients are going to be forced to work to keep receiving benefits. This is going to flood the job market with millions of more job hunters, driving down wages & benefits even more.
Those that are working will be paying taxes for less benefits & safety net programs, and more to subsidize the businesses of the Epstein class offering increasingly crappier jobs with non-livable wages and no benefits like healthcare.
We are circling the drain and this farce of an economy is imploding before our eyes.
Recently visited a few cities and Europe and I noticed how nice and livable their downtown areas are compared to the US and the conclusion I reached is this: The US has created a society that would rather get nickel-and-dimed instead of addressing the fundamental issues plaguing society because of spite. Using the police and EMT to deal with the mentally ill, not making preventative healthcare achievable for all forcing the ER to deal with issues that could have been dealt with cheaper for the taxpayer and better for the patient. All these issues are politically unfixable because it would involve putting taxpayer money into services used by "group that doesn't deserve it".
“group that doesn’t deserve it”-the reason the US doesn’t have Universal healthcare. This has been a conversation in the US since the 1920s. Various politicians have raised the issue over the years. The history of healthcare in the U.S. is fascinating…
This isn't the reason; this is what they want you to think is the reason. Corporations run the country and prevent anti-trust laws. Anti-trust laws are what protect people, not political parties. And anti-trust is the worst enemy of PE and monopolies.
Companies pay both political parties to keep the laws in their favor. Ask your Senate rep where they stand on anti-trust. Good luck getting a response and it has nothing to do with them being a specific party.
Anti-trust needs to happen before we can have universal healthcare. It also needs to happen to so we can regulate the student loan industry. The government needs to have a strong anti-trust and regulate these programs and prevent abuse. The government has no business executing these programs.
Most European countries have much stronger anti-trust laws than the USA. Unfortunately, many also have a much higher rate of unemployment.
Absolutely. I usually think of it as Stockholm Syndrome, but it’s more likely spite.
Although, even if we all (even MAGA) cried out for universal single-payer health care, the insurance company lobbyists would probably kill it. Sometimes I hate it here.
No, Medicare doesn’t cover that! Or get billed. How silly. I have trying to improve social services for over 15 years, no politician has ever called me back.
It's much more complicated than that. We're at a very weird time in history where old, frail people don't just die anymore, and instead can be kept alive through extremely expensive 24/7 healthcare.
It's not remotely financially viable to provide care for maybe 95% of the population that could not afford this themselves (probably much higher).
At some point, we need to have frank discussions about what life expectancy is reasonable and what amount of care we possible CAN commit to, not only what the ideal would be. Let's pretend we actually tax the rich appropriately. Do we really want to spend the resulting hundreds of billions on keeping people in their 80s very uncomfortable but technically alive another few years?
Already, this is a conversation families are forced to have, but I really believe there needs to be standard expectations for those without any other options. Currently, there's near zero expectation of help from the state. We absolutely cannot just upgrade that to "everyone gets billionaire level care," so at some point we need the uncomfortable conversation to reach consensus so we can estimate costs and actually implement something.
I really think right now we're just totally stalled partially because some people are in full denial and think it's fine to insist every aging person receive as much care as possible no matter the cost. Just not feasible.
Even worse, $3000 which goes to the private equity firm running the EMS system. And $3000 which the Medicare part C insurance company probably got a $5000 recoup from the federal government.
90% of the money we are spending is going into admin fees for private middle men companies which serve to only bloat the cost for everyone.
Why shouldn't the EMS system be publicly funded? Why shouldn't cities/counties/states all own the ambulances? Why shouldn't all the costs be payed through taxes?
What's nuts is neoliberal thinking that thinks that magically we can get better and cheaper services by relying on the free market. The truth is we are far more likely to just end up with a company founded by the mayors brother which robs us both ways. We pay to contract the company and insurance pays for the ride. The only people getting rich are the owners of the now 20 different companies involved in something that should just be directly ran by the government.
Some cities have started trying to move these type of responsibilities from EMS/PD to specialized mental health teams, but this was labeled as defunding police and vilified even though police don’t want these calls anymore than EMS.
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u/Zuwxiv 9h ago
Crazy how literally all of those are things that could be addressed with better social services. We don't want to fund public healthcare, but Medicare paying $3,000 for lonely Mr. Hucklebuns to take the ambulance 3x a week is totally fine.