I’d make another long reply but I wasn’t even posting seriously in the first place, and I’m too lazy now that I have to go back to work. I still have to take offense at your whole “good” and “bad” poor people. The whole thing is ridiculous. There are plenty of examples in any other developed country that health care can easily cover all poor people without putting them into categories of “good” and “bad” - while also costing less in both real terms and in proportion of a country’s GDP. I don’t think you can disagree that the US spends more on health care in total and per capita yet produces less results than the rest of the developed world. We shouldn’t be limiting profits to 15%, there shouldn’t be any profit allowed whatsoever in the realm of health care, and the fact that we’ve gone another decade without solving this problem represents the ultimate failure to me.
Anyway, let’s get back to talking about things that suck. The politics of extreme partisanship have really reached new levels in the 2000’s. People are simply unwilling to ever change their minds about any views, regardless of how thoroughly they’ve been disproven. As you can see from the charts below, even in the case of Vietnam, public opinion very quickly swayed largely to being opposed to it, whereas public opinion about Iraq has pretty much stayed consistent for the last five years despite being more obviously a complete failure with every passing day. There just doesn’t seem to be a concept anymore of “fact” - when a State can legislate that the value of “pi” is actually 3, and not 3.141592…and even mathematics enters the realm of “well that’s your opinion” - it seems to me we are hopelessly lost.
I wasn’t really including “Pharmaceuticals” in health care, but ideally I don’t think these industries should be for profit either. How do drug companies make more profits? By selling more drugs. The bigger question though is “do people really need more drugs?” and I don’t think you can unilaterally answer “yes” to that question. It’s not my perfect socialist paradise though, so to answer your question in the real world, I’d say that they should be allowed to profit whatever the state-controlled health insurance monopoly allows them to. In terms of cosmetic drugs…well if people want to waste their money on this bullshit then whatever, but it shouldn’t be covered by the national health plan.
What does this have to do with anything? I think you might be confusing my meaning of the word “cosmetic drugs”
What if nobody wants to be a doctor because there is more money in becoming something that takes less training?
Doctors in other developed nations (and also developing nations) all make very good salaries relative to the national average. Also, they don’t have to go hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt to learn the trade because their schooling is heavily subsidized (this is a whole other issue which I’ll get into in another post soon). The question is: should doctors, especially specialist surgeons, really be making salaries in the top 1% of national salaries? I’m sure most Americans here would think there is nothing wrong with this, but most of the non-Americans here would probably think that is too much. Of course, the very idea of a salary being “too much” is completely foreign to most Americans, but maybe we should start asking this question.
Actually, everyone I’ve talked about on this subject think that a number of people earn more money than they should. Doctors are not in this catagory. Some Company CEOs, Presidents of some Organizations, and similiar positions that earn upwards of 10 million dollars a year are considered, as it’s commonly put, a bit over the top for one person.
Edit: This doesn’t just include “liberal college students” but my neighbors, relatives, friends in the military, etc.
OK, I know this seems strange, but I have less of a problem with corporate CEOs making ridiculous salaries than doctors making very high salaries. why is this? Well, corporations, in a capitalist system, exist for the sole purpose of generating profits for shareholders. This is literally the law. Corporations MUST maximize profits for shareholders or the shareholders can sue the corporations. Thus, a CEO that expands his corporations’ profits will obviously be healthily compensated. OF course, much like doctors, CEOs in other developed nations make a pittance compared to CEOs in America. And in my dream world, we’d be executing these monsters and taking control of their corporations with their assets spread out among democratic, non-hierarchical systems to be used for the good of society. But this isn’t my dream world…
Doctors, on the other hand, exist to serve their patients the best they can. This is the essence of the hippocratic oath. Now, I understand they must dedicate a large portion of their life to study in preparation for this field, and they deserve to be compensated accordingly. But what is just compensation? Twice the national average? Three times? Five? Ten? Twenty? You can make an argument that almost any job is “necessary” for the society. Should doctors make 5 times what teachers make? I don’t have any answer to this question, just throwing it out there for you. I’d just like to say that another unintentional result of our economy “over-rewarding” doctors is that we steal them from other nations, especially developing nations, where they are most needed. It also pretty much forces most med students into specialized fields rather than “general practice” - resulting in the situation we have now where not nearly enough prevantative care is being given. Absolutely none of these issues are deal with in our so-called “health reform”
Similarly, I doubt any universal health care package we ever get would cover illegal immigrants. Hell, it probably wouldn’t even cover legal immigrants. Conclusion: America is just as bad as nazi germany
I think I’m going to rant angrily and mostly incoherently for a moment. Please bear with me.
The United States spent nearly nine times the amount of money on our military than China, the most populous country in the world ($515,400,000,000 vs. $59,000,000,000). The American military is provided with free health and dental care, as well as coverage for their families. Why can’t some of the military’s bloated budget be cut so that everybody can enjoy the same coverage? Do they really need a seperate medical system from everybody else? And what are we spending this money on, anyway? The most powerful military in the world, the one that has the most money and toys backing it, is NOT SUCCEEDING in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t seem like a good investment to me. And not just a waste of money, but a waste of human lives (not just American lives). So we’re pissing away money, lives, and resources on a cause that is not only lost, but completely incomprehensible. Give me a reason we’re in Iraq or Afghanistan that isn’t “killing Muslims.”
EDIT: I also wanted to note that as long as we’re capitalist we’re likely to be a fucking miserable society. When is that violent revolution coming?
Personally, I blame bad tactics. It isn’t very helpful for the military when the president has no tactical experience. Also, most military personel that have the ear of the oval office don’t have much tactical experience. That and in general geurilla tactics are hard to combat.
As for the violent revolution, there’s a lot of Second Ammendment supporters that I know that will be less than pleased if firearm laws and procedures become even more strict.
Edit: Also, most of the people that are “miserable” in our society simply do not have the right mindset. Most of these people equate being miserable to having to do work. But that is a topic for another time and place.
