How f**k up are some conservatives?

[uebermann]

So one of my aunts is having to get COBRA insurance and is worried about the $1k a month she'll have to pay for it and where the money will come from and how high the deductible is, and that essentially she is worried about her finances because of potential medical conditions as she isn't getting any younger. I point out that there are some politicians out there that want to have health care covered as right, and that the US could spend more money on such things as opposed to more bombs and tanks. And her response is that I'm crazy.

Apparently, the US having a bloated military budget is far more important to her than her own health and well being.

I love my aunt, and I hate sounding like a huge dick, but I am really glad I didn't fall into the family mold of being an uneducated redneck. It must be f**k terrible to be an uneducated person in the US. To be so brainwashed as to think, "Thank God we have bombs to kill brown people!" as opposed to "Hey, couldn't that money be used to help me and my family stay healthy," makes me wonder how the f**k society is even able to advance at all.

[exploited]

It advances by literally dragging conservatives, kicking and screaming and bombing and terrorizing, into the future. That is it, that is all.

Conservatism is fundamentally a broken and illogical political philosophy. It has no relation to the real world or how human beings experience it.

[John Galt]

national defense is a far more reasonable use of public funds than individual healthcare. that said, it seems economically cheaper to go with the government option, but that doesn't mean its best healthcare. and because it's not the best, because you remove choice from the equation, people don't like it, even if it's a false choice. basically no one argues with their own doctor about anything or shop around. people only shop around for things not medically necessary

as for "bloated military spending", the pax americana is worth it. and besides, 20 countries, including the most heavily nuclear armed nation on earth, spend more of their gdp on the military

we spend far more on healthcare than we do on defense. defense spending is roughly 15% of the budget. social security, medicare, medicaid, etc make up over half. add in another 10% for welfare. the rest is interest and debt and then everything else

[jimmyz]

Aunty would do better if she banked the "$1000.00" every month. Go pay cash at an urgent care clinic for her minor flus or infections and stay healthy until she reaches medicare age and look at the balance in her savings account with a smile.

Didn't the former Leftist POTUS and the previous Leftist Marxist dominated Dem Congress give the Obamacare miracle option to people like Aunty.

[uebermann]

[Spider]

Yeah, people forget the scale of the US economy. It can support a large military. Does it need to be this large? No, of course not...and a lot of the strategic doctrine will soon be negated by ASBM's and laser/railgun warfare.

Simply expanding Medicare to include the entire population would completely dwarf the military budget. Even removing the military entirely wouldn't make much of a dent. Medicare for all would cost something like 3+ trillion a year more than what we're already paying over ten years, if that study is to be believed. That's almost 6 times more than the military budget.

Taxes would have to be increased to the same sorts of heights as seen in other Western nations with universal healthcare. Not everyone is lucky enough to live in a northern low population, high resource country.

[Saz]

[Spider]

Seriously? Can't add?

And the military budget is not a trillion per year. You are disingenuously injecting fantastical something from nothing reasoning into all this, whilst ignoring actual figures. You are basically parroting Bernie's cherry picking back at us. It's not true, as it depends on replacing insurers current rates with that of Medicare...which is like half as much. It all falls apart when you start getting realistic with actual payment rates.

[Saz]

all numbers should be trillion, except 30 million uninsured. point remains

[Spider]

Sorry, hadn't finished editing. First line was just immediate eye roll stuff.