I have a question that has been puzzling me since the Health Care debate started.

[Chisox08]

Why is it we have billions upon billions of dollars to kill people halfway around the world, but when it comes to saving the lives of American citizens we can not afford it?
Our congress passed suplimental after suplimental to fuund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without question. Now that we are talking about Health care all I hear is "it cost to much" or "we can not afford it".

[imdjh]

1. And that's why bills have amendments.

People bitch all the time about "unrelated" issues being attached to bills moving through Congress. They aren't unrelated. To get funding for your project, you have to play footsie with other people. So Alaska, which pretty much has Single Payer already, wants something to vote for Single Payer for the rest fo the country. SO they get a bridge or something.

[Warpy]

2. The rich run the country and the rich want an empire

erected on the backs of every other person in the country. They've robbed not only our wages, retirement and health care, they've also robbed the country's infrastructure in their pursuit of empire, sending manufacturing overseas while allowing roads, bridges, electrical grids, dams, water treatment and everything else to fall into disrepair.

Any permanent solution to this country's problems will have to come with a total restructuring of our military, the abandonment of empire and most of the bases overseas, and a commitment to defense, only.

We can't afford the rich man's empire. That is clear to us now.

[Echo In Light]

12. The real question is, when do the people finally DO something about it?

It's time to either drop the childish denial and rhetoric over how this oligarchy is supposedly a genuine Rep Democracy and admit we exist under corporate rule, and, guessing by most American's attitudes, carry on biz as usual minus the feely good bullshit ... or, begin organizing against corporate rule. Neither of those would ever occur, or at least by any substantial degree in this brainwashed empire, but that's my two cents on it.

[Warpy]

14. That kind of thing only happens when people are a lot more desperate

than they are right now. Most unemployed people who stand to lose everything haven't quite lost it yet and extended family and networks of friends are still helping a lot of people who have.

We do seem to be headed for a tipping point when that will no longer be the case, when the whole social structure breaks down under the weight of too many people with absolutely nothing left to lose.

That happened in the Great Depression and the oligarchy was fearful enough of a socialist revolution that they allowed liberalism to stabilize the system and restart capitalism with a slightly more level playing field.

That's not going to happen this time because the infrastructure has been destroyed, exported or left to rot.

I have no idea what is going to happen and whether or not the desperate will be able to frighten the comfortable into doing the right things.

I do know the next few years will be interesting ones.

[starroute]

15. But in 1932 there were already a lot of radical alternatives

You had the Communist Party, at least three different socialist parties, even the Wobblies were still influential. Right now, we have nothing. The Greens are not social radicals. The US doesn't even have a local branch of the Pirate Party. ;-)

This is one of the things that's most worrisome about the rise in right-wing populism. When the working class finally gets angry enough to do something, the Palin Party will be there, ready to welcome them with outstretched arms -- and the left will have nothing.

Maybe if all the people who've been sitting on their hands while bitching about the Obama administration went out right now and started organizing the Screw the Rich Party, we'd have something to offer when the time turns. Otherwise, not so much.

[Chisox08]

16. The Screw the Rich party sounds like a good idea

As does ScrewtheRichUnderground.com There are too many Americans who are only willing to Bitch and moan but are not willing to do anything.

[orwell]

3. Fear...

...it has always been the way that the King controls the serfs.

[Chisox08]

9. That is why one of my favorite FDR quotes is

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself". With the Repukes its "The only thing we have to offer is fear itself".

[iamjoy]

4. It's So Obvious

I can't believe people don't get it. We don't have money for healthcare because we spent (or spend) it all killing people. So there you are.

Besides, if we are fighting all these wars, we will need more equipment. So, more people will get jobs building the stuff we need to go kill people. Those jobs will probably offer health insurance. Also, we'll need more people in the military. Once they sign up for active duty, they get health care!

It's really quite simple.

-)

[valerief]

5. We don't collect Corporate Taxes anymore. That's money lost. nt

[zbdent]

6. not long ago, the Dems wanted $40/50 billion over 10 years to make sure

that children get the minimum health care ...

The Repukes said that we couldn't afford what was essentially 2-3 months of the Iraq occupation ...

[Chisox08]

8. According to the Repukes all we can afford is war

[Fozzledick]

7. It's not that we don't have the money

It's that a third to a half of what we're spending now is going to the insurance companies and the unnecessary overhead that doctors and hospitals are forced to pay to deal with their constant attempts to deny payment for services rendered.

This situation persists only because the insurance companies kick back enough to Congress to obstruct any attempt at real reform, not for lack of available funds. We're already paying more than enough for universal coverage, we're just not getting it.

[zipplewrath]

10. Technically

The presumption is that the war will end and the money flow stop. With healthcare it will be an unending cost. Also, wars are expected to "wind down" and cost less in the out years. Healthcare will only increase in cost.

One is left arguing the reality of those presumptions. This country has been "at war" in one sense or another more than it has not. We lose track of all the wars, some so small as to not be noticed in history. And the argument I find so frustrating is that:

1) We already have publicly funded healthcare, in many forms really.

2) The single largest purchaser of healthcare, privately or otherwise, is the US government.

3) Any private company of 1/10th the size of the US government would be "self insured", why not the government itself.

4) Any company buying that much of a product would ensure it could leverage its purchasing power in ALL of its purchases.

5) The only way to control the cost is to control the purchase.

[progressoid]

11. We don't have billions upon billions to kill people - we're borrowing that money...

from the Chinese, the Saudis etc. Our grandchildren will have to pay it off.

[janet118]

13. In Sicko, Moore made a similar point about national will . . .

The Brits created their universal health care system immediately after WWII when their economy and infrastructure were completely devastated by the war. It's all about national values. If Obama and the Democrats manage to put together and pass a rational health care system, they will go down in history as heroes.

[NewJeffCT]

17. My question is - why do they keep quoting the 10 year cost

but, never say it's a 10 year cost? When the newsmedia says $1 trillion or $600 billion or $1.5 trillion, it's never qualified by saying that is over 10 years.

Why was the Iraq boondoggle $100-$150 billion/year, not $1.5 trillion over 10?

[NewJeffCT]

18. My question is - why do they keep quoting the 10 year cost

but, never say it's a 10 year cost? When the newsmedia says $1 trillion or $600 billion or $1.5 trillion, it's never qualified by saying that is over 10 years.

Why was the Iraq boondoggle $100-$150 billion/year, not $1.5 trillion over 10?

[FlyingSquirrel]

19. I have a quick answer for you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0x-DOiDzp8

Actually it's 1 minute 21 seconds long, but you'll get the idea within the first 8 seconds.

:D

[sutz12]

20. Apples and oranges....(not my words)

Please don't shoot the messenger. ;)

That was the response I got when making a comparison between medical reform and the wars from a fundie.

The wars are "defense" even though at least one of them, Iraq, was a war of choice.

When you can compartmentalize "morality" to the point where Clinton should have resigned, but Ensign shouldn't, petty arguments about the "morality" of spending on wars versus healthcare is child's play.

:shrug:

[notesdev]

21. We don't have the money to do either

What we actually have the money to do is something like 40% of what our governments presently do, thanks to runaway borrowing.

The Chinese lend it to us, selling us the rope (debt) with which to hang ourselves (go bankrupt).