US Universal Healthcare

This thread has become a discussion on both healthcare and U.S. military policy. While, as Naomi Klein as pointed out, the causes of many of America's current major challenges - poverty, health care, never-ending foreign entanglements, and the environment among them - are intertwined, I don't feel capable of effectively addressing both issues in a single post. My preference would be that the discussion on military policy gets moved someplace else, but setting that aside I'll focus just on health care here.

An excellent place to start is text from Kyrin's first post:

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: ... There are 3 major factors in health care, only two of which can be priority at any time. Those factors are high quality, affordability, and universality. So the question becomes, which one of these three do you want to sacrifice to maximize the others?

Within a certain scope of economic resources and prudence in applying them, that's a fair statement. I doubt any of us could propose a means of providing the same quality of care that, say, a Rockefeller receives to everybody at a low cost. Compromises have to be made, no matter what healthcare system a nation adopts.

But it's also the case that when either our economic resources or our prudence fall sufficiently short, those tradeoffs are no longer relevant. A country sufficiently impoverished in terms of either funds or values can fail on all three counts, offering health care that is simultaneously poor in quality, unaffordable, and inaccessible. The evidence is that the U.S. is failing, compared to other developed nations, on all three counts. When we compare our own results to most of the nations of Europe, we spend a greater percentage of our GDP on health care; most of our metrics regarding quality (e.g., infant mortality, average lifespan, etc.) are significantly poorer; and a smaller percentage of our citizens have ready access to healthcare than any of the other countries in this pool.

The system needs to be upended. I do not perceive that there is either an openly free-market health care system or a regulated market-based system anywhere on Earth that is working as well in any respect as the government-sponsored programs that every developed nation except the U.S. has. That is something to think about.

Stormcaller wrote:

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote:

Eugene wrote: I am not saying that we should "ditch" the air force, nor am I saying that we "shouldn't" develop batter defensive system's in which to defend our nation; what I'm saying, is that we can not field an aircraft to take on multiple "specific" roles which it can not handle.

To define what I mean let us look to nature. The peregrine falcon evolved to "dive" at there target clocking in at over 200 mph, the harpy eagle evolved to "dodge" between tree's on it's hunt in the amazon; and then the penguin, evolved to torpedo thru the ocean at over 20 mph.

Each evolved for max efficiency in a specific "way" of hunting, and that is what we should emulate. the F 35/joint strike fighter is thus inefficient for what it's worth, and we can put that money else where.

Are you some sort of expert on this?

...Are YOU?... T_T

As a matter of fact yes. I served in the military for 10 years, I am a pilot and I have an astro-physics degree.

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote:

Stormcaller wrote:

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote:

Eugene wrote: I am not saying that we should "ditch" the air force, nor am I saying that we "shouldn't" develop batter defensive system's in which to defend our nation; what I'm saying, is that we can not field an aircraft to take on multiple "specific" roles which it can not handle.

To define what I mean let us look to nature. The peregrine falcon evolved to "dive" at there target clocking in at over 200 mph, the harpy eagle evolved to "dodge" between tree's on it's hunt in the amazon; and then the penguin, evolved to torpedo thru the ocean at over 20 mph.

Each evolved for max efficiency in a specific "way" of hunting, and that is what we should emulate. the F 35/joint strike fighter is thus inefficient for what it's worth, and we can put that money else where.

Are you some sort of expert on this?

...Are YOU?... T_T

As a matter of fact yes. I served in the military for 10 years, I am a pilot and I have an astro-physics degree.

And I openly believe you would answer this way regardless of the conversation and context; I don't believe you, and I think you're propaganda fueled opinions aren't interchangeable with the reality of the outside world you happily slap down because they don't align with the view from inside the American Bubble.

Short version: I think you're full of shit, and I wish you'd stop coming into this place just to snub nose people who don't agree with you OR have the nerve to tell you YOU ARE WRONG.

And that's all I have to say.

Good day.

(let's change my name to hypocrisy, while we're at it; head off your next excuse for an argument)

Its ok, I will be your Villain. I hope it makes you feel better.

Sigh - one more example of what happens when the focus of a discussion turns from its original subject to someone designated as "you".

I'm wondering if Godwin's Law is about to gather more substantiation: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

I believe you're a strong soul, Kyrin, but I'm still sorry the conversation devolved this way.

Well, I've said it before and I'll say it again, your problem, Kyrin, is delivery.

When you say:

LOL its not that we could not do it in ten years. Its that why would we want to implement any of her plans. All of them are impractical in the greatest degree.

It just comes off as dismissive. It immediately triggers most readers into getting defensive, and thus the blanket statements and quick judgments follow.

If that was your intent, then bravo, I guess.

Anyway, I don't expect you to change. But I would follow up your statement with the question:

Why are AOC's plans impractical in the greatest degree?

Impractical is not a dismissive term I would say. To answer your question as to why, high speed rails work well in small countries with dense populations. The usa is not that. Ending air travel is never going to happen. Its by far the cheapest and safest and fastest form of travel available. The restructuring of every building will take more money than the wealth of the entire us population. And people will never stop eating meat.


My delivery may seem harsh at times but at least it is consistent. I find it so entertaining that those that are so quick to reprimand me all the time seem to be silent about storms comments. Ideas not people, right?

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: Impractical is not a dismissive term I would say. To answer your question as to why, high speed rails work well in small countries with dense populations. The usa is not that. Ending air travel is never going to happen. Its by far the cheapest and safest and fastest form of travel available. The restructuring of every building will take more money than the wealth of the entire us population. And people will never stop eating meat.

It might be cool to start a new thread discussing indepth some of the proposals in the Green New Deal. Might be a learning experience for all.

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: My delivery may seem harsh at times but at least it is consistent. I find it so entertaining that those that are so quick to reprimand me all the time seem to be silent about storms comments. Ideas not people, right?

You know me better than to think I am reprimanding you. I am fond of you, thus you get my attention. I don't really know Storm, he/she is evidently upset, but why he/she would think the emotional response would help is beyond me.

Of course Manu, I'm not referring to you but those that never claim they are out to start a fight with me but then single my comments out for criticism but ignore storms.

I may not have been clear. In this particular case, it was Storm's latest previous response that caused me dismay, not yours, Kyrin. I apologize if I conveyed a different message.