Oof that party split.
bOtH sIdEs aRe tHe sAmE
Republicans are “fuck everyone but the insanely wealthy”. Democrats are “give a crumb to everyone and everything else to the insanely wealthy”. Voting Democrat is the only real option we have in this country against a “side” that wants to destroy everything America is about, but it’s still voting for a bunch of scumbags who are just going to vote for the same thing that maybe isn’t quite as absolutely devastating to every single person who makes under a billion dollars in this country but still doesn’t help nearly enough.
Alter or abolish. Voting is useless.
Fuck Putin.
Fuck off back to Russia.
That’s where you and Trump belong, fascist.
It’s cute you people are too stupid to know what words mean. You think they’re like some kind of magic incantation you can chant and harm your enemy.
That’s how most votes go. Have you seen the marijuana decriminalization and expungement bill? Stalled in the House with 116 cosponsors.
Democrats need to vote in congressional elections.
Democrats need to vote in congressional elections.
“But the democratic candidates aren’t perfect or exciting or far left enough, so I’m going to stay home and teach them a lesson!”
Narrator: that lesson? That your (left) vote isn’t worth fighting for, so they go right to get votes. V. O. T. E.
To add to your point, not voting is ceding power to those who would (and do!) act against you and your best interests. Perfect is the enemy of good. No candidate exists that shares all your views, so the only way to make things better is to vote for the better option that can win so the worse option doesn’t roll back progress. If that’s not good enough, run for office yourself locally or invest in local parties to change your locale for the better.
If that’s not good enough, run for office yourself locally or invest in local parties to change your locale for the better.
Yeah I’ll get right on that with the suitcase full of campaign money that I definitely have.
I get the point you’re making but running for office is not a realistic goal for most people. This is intentional.
You can correct me if I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure nobody gave AOC a suitcase full of cash. She put in the effort and that got her first the district and later the congress. You can dismiss her as the exception, but she’s “the exception” only if you consider her effort to be exceptional. And there was that other guy (literally blanking on the name) who ran as a democrat and is now turning republican after being elected, pretty sure he also did a grassroots campaign. You can absolutely get shit done if you put in the effort.
The “suitcase full of campaign money” is the lie you’re told to keep you from running.
It doesn’t take much to run locally. I know someone who wanted to be a member of the county board and he did so without doing much more than some mass mailers to constituents.
Going for bigger offices you have a point, but not on the super local level.
“But the democratic candidates aren’t perfect or exciting or far left enough, so I’m going to stay home and teach them a lesson!”
People would stop thinking things like this if they met the people in their local and state parties. They insist they’re the adults in the room and that they have no lessons to learn.
“Or young enough”
I’ve fallen victim to this sort of apathetic sentiment before and even voted for Trump in 2016. I quickly learned my lesson and have voted Blue on everything since. Sometimes even a subjectively mediocre candidate is far better than an exciting candidate who may not have anyone’s best interests in mind. Don’t be like how I used to be!
I hear you. I voted for Nader in 2000, then spent years protesting the Bush administration. If Democrats consistently win for long enough, primaries can force them further left to capture more of the vote. I’d love to see us break the two-party system, but they always fail to get a single Electoral College vote, and mostly help elect Republicans. Why do you think RFK Jr. is funded by conservative PACs?
How much of this goes to private contractors profits instead of actually helping defend this country and taking care of our troops?
About half, publicly at least. Half of all this budget will go directly to private contractors.
We actually don’t know. The Pentagon regularly fails audits.
What’s a MAC and what do they do? A Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) is a private health care insurer that has been awarded a geographic jurisdiction to process Medicare Part A and Part B (A/B) medical claims or Durable Medical Equipment (DME) claims for Medicare Fee-For-Service (FFS) beneficiaries. CMS relies on a network of MACs to serve as the primary operational contact between the Medicare FFS program and the health care providers enrolled in the program. MACs are multi-state, regional contractors responsible for administering both Medicare Part A and Medicare Part B claims. MACs perform many activities including:
Process Medicare FFS claims Make and account for Medicare FFS payments Enroll providers in the Medicare FFS program Handle provider reimbursement services and audit institutional provider cost reports Handle redetermination requests (1st stage appeals process) Respond to provider inquiries Educate providers about Medicare FFS billing requirements Establish local coverage determinations (LCD’s) Review medical records for selected claims Coordinate with CMS and other FFS contractors
ETA; Wrt military private contractors, they used to be called “mercenaries.” Iirc, Rene Descarte was, so make of that what you will.
Private contractors do help defend this country. Yes there are bad apples. I live near a ton of these private contractors since I live right outside DC. A lot of these guys are former troops. If you’re talking about the C-Suites, well, that’s an issue not exclusive to defense contracting.
Compared to previous budgets, less. The rise in spending is 1%, whilst the rise in military wages will be 4.5% to reach a $15 Minium wage for federal employees (Neither is inflation adjusted).
70%
And if you even suggest lowering the amount spent. The Pentagon immediately stops supplying body armor to the troops and blames you for killing them…
Citation needed
I say again. The defense budget nor any other current spending is preventing us from having free healthcare. Medicare for All would be significantly cheaper than our current healthcare costs. We’re already paying for both defense and healthcare. Switching to M4A would save us money and improve our healthcare experience while completely ignoring the defense budget. We can easily do both. The insurance companies, big pharma, and hospital executives are the ones preventing M4A, not Raytheon.
They’re aware. It’s no coincidence that the same party that just voted in favor of increasing military funding also dismantled the ACA and votes against socialized single-payer healthcare.
The way of expressing this that really put it together for me was “The United States only ever has one total healthcare bill.”
People not getting the healthcare they need already has costs; costs in hours they can’t work because they’re sick, costs in retraining people for jobs they can no longer do due to health issues, costs in people declaring bankruptcy because they were devastated by medical bills, and costs in lost human lives because of untreated sickness. All of those costs ripple through the economy, and we all wind up paying for them, one way or another.
Even if you assume that universal healthcare wouldn’t actually improve the total base amount spent on medicine (it fucking would, in several ways, but assume that it doesn’t just for the sake of argument), we would still be coming out ahead because we’d be sweeping the legs out from under the private healthcare industry, which only exists to siphon profits off of expenses that people have to pay or else they die.
Fuck everyone who ever voted against universal healthcare.
we’d be sweeping the legs out from under the private healthcare industry
And health insurance. Which is why we’ll never do it. The president who puts almost a million people out of work will never get re-elected.
Second term presidents don’t have to worry about reelection
No, they just need to get their successor elected to continue their legacy, and make sure Congress doesn’t change hands.
And if we need permanent supermajority Democratic control for fifty years to fix this travesty of a country they’re not going to get that if they put a million people out of work.
That’s what the lame duck portion is for. Pass all the shit that may be unpopular, but necessary after the election has already been decided. The people don’t remember what happened in the last few months of a lame duck term, by the time the next election happens. They’ll have forgotten, unless they happen to be part of that million people, and a million people is less than ¼ of 1% of the country.
“We can’t turn off the orphan-crushing machine! Think of all the unemployed orphan crushers!”
Those orphan crushers vote in the very special places that it matters. Also there’s more of them than people who oppose orphan crushing.
I’m not saying it’s right. I’m just saying it’s what we’re stuck with.
Yes. but those people that lose their jobs wouldn’t have to stress about either paying for or using healthcare - This freedom can give many people the opportunity to do something they love (or like to do). Maybe that is starting a new business or creating a new product? Or they could go work in a different industry that they find more fulfilling where previous they couldn’t because of the lack of health benefits.
I think in the long run the people that lose their job grinding away in a huge faceless health insurance job might actually be a good thing for them?
I think people think in the short term and not the long term, that health insurance is just one small expense that people have, that losing your job is a traumatic event, that getting into a new career requires retraining, that having a glut of people looking for a job will lower wages, and that a lot of these folks live in suburban swing districts.
I agree that eventually universal health care would be better. It would free up labor to do the hard jobs in health care like nursing. But this comment has big “coal miners should learn to code” energy.
Many of those employed in private health insurance may find key roles in administrating a single payer system.
Along those lines: If a sudden mass of bureaucrats were unemployed: there is a (not so) coincidental massive shortage and generational gap in local governments across the states.
More than that though I think freeing up people’s need for affording modern healthcare is a strong career incentive. The private healthcare system can have a restrictive effect for small businesses, especially small family businesses. It is one of the single largest expenses an employer has to account for which is bad for labor and bad for small business.
But that is great for large business that can absorb the cost more reliably. Also great for the insurance industry who are more than happy to negotiate a contract with a major corporation instead of administering plans for 1000 similar small operations. Which is a bit of a feedback loop as health insurance is big business.
I always felt that was one of the more compelling point, at least.
It would be great except if (and they would) turn over administration to private insurance companies.
The defense budget nor any other current spending is preventing us from having free healthcare.
You missed a “neither”. I got what you’re saying after a bit, but your sentence literally means the opposite of what you intend it to mean.
Is it actually necessary? I figured you could leave it implied. But hey, if it’s confusing people, then I guess it is necessary.
It is actually required grammatically lol
Yeah that $895 billion should go to infrastructure and social services in the US. What a giant fucking waste of money they’re using it on.
Social services investment would save the government money by reducing policing and incarceration costs, among other things. We could do both. I’d have to learn more about the financial side of infrastructure to say anything meaningful.
Well put.
Imagine if it was 216-214? That would be impressive.
I’m seeing a lot of “We should have less defense budget and more health care budget” in these comments. But we don’t need more health care budget. The existing budget is more than enough to give us universal health care.
I know what you fuckers are really trying to say.
"We should have less defense budget
and more health care budget"Fuck you, tankies
I’m sorry, do you think it’s a good thing that we funnel huge amounts of money into the bank accounts of the people at the top of huge corporations making devices for destruction? I don’t.
Not exactly, but it’s actively harmful to the universal healthcare movement on multiple levels to have people believe it would cost the government more money than they are already spending.
The fact that it would cost less is already counterintuitive.
Fuck Vladimir Putin. With a Haliburton-designed dildo. Destruct his rectum.
I get your point, I agree that the US has ample healthcare budget already; the US spends government significantly more budget money (proportionally) on social programs than the EU and most countries with universal and/or free healthcare, but has significantly worse outcomes because capitalism moment. I also agree that the US should value its ability to fight wars. We don’t need to lower our military budget in order to get better healthcare, we need to get rid of liberal capitalism and replace it with heavy regulation or (preferrably but unrealistically) socialism…
That being said, when our military supplies are being used to bomb Palestinian kids
Ukraine is on the same coin, so it’s a matter of how you choose to look at it.
We should rebrand regulation as conservative capitalism. Say that for a decade and it’ll mean what we want it to.
Or to not get too in the weeds, specific to healthcare just take an off the shelf single payer program that already works well in any number of countries.
It’s only hard because of conservative opposition. Vote those bastards out, and elect enough progressives to override the conservative Dems.
We probably would have an extremely robust universal and free healthcare plan by now if it weren’t for certain crucial legislatures being filled with conservatives; Truman tried pretty hard to give America universal healthcare, plus civil rights and the best social welfare in the first world in general, but he was stopped in his tracks by a coalition of conservative Democrats and Republicans. Obama also likely would have gotten us universal healthcare if a portion of the Democrats under him were less conservative – he went for the ACA because he knew that would pass, even if it was sub-par.
It’s a shame how Truman couldn’t achieve his goals in office, otherwise I feel we would probably be far better off, and leading the first world in social welfare. Truman was dead-set on bolstering New Deal policies including extremely progressive taxation and better social programs – the same policies which were the foundation of America’s greatest economic success, which is a big part of why recession hit after his conservative Republican second legislator came in and started opposing him. We likely wouldn’t even have had Reagan if it went differently – his election was mostly a reaction to the perceived failures of Carter (which were in reality mostly a result of the policies of Nixon and Ford, combined with the 1970s energy crisis) and progressive Democrats as a whole at the time. We might have not even had Nixon, since Truman’s progressive policies being implemented and succeeding likely would drag the Democrat party, and Americans in general, more leftwards; which is important considering he was elected due to McGovern being considered “too liberal”.
No that money should be going to the healthcare for all the people who’s lives the USA has destroyed
Reading these comments about the defence budget, I’m trying to remember the last time the US “defended” themselves
Was it in 2001 when they “defended” themselves against Saudi Arabia by attacking Iraq?
The US went into Afghanistan in October 2001. We didn’t go into Iraq until March 2003.
What, you expect us to remember in which order they started genociding brown people?!? 😂
WW2 was last time the US military actually did anything of value. After that they were fighting farmers and peasants and/or just feed the industrial machine.
sad Ukraine noises
Right, but the US military is not fighting there
Not directly, but the US military is moving mountains to support Ukraine.
USMC Major General Smedley Butler has a few words on this matter.
Is that him from Blazing Saddles?
They defend their interests. It’s practically the same thing, don’t worry about it too much.
Ah yes, that’s what Bin Laden was doing too!
Terrorism
Hey, preventing humanity’s progress out of capitalism by installing authoritarian regimes on potentially socialist countries ain’t cheap!
So like you just want us to wait until we get attacked first?
The entire doctrine of the US military is to fight wars over there to prevent them from coming here.
Why would anyone attack you? You’d have to spend decades destabilising the planet through pure greed to make people angry enough
Why does anyone attack anyone? You think everyone ever attacked had it coming?
Right. How else are we going to make the rest of the world safe for Walmart and McDonalds if we just stay home?
If the USA wasn’t starting and fighting wars it began without provocation , maybe there’d be less groups interested in “going there”.
Besides, of the countries the USA considers an enemy, only Russia can ever “realistically” invade 'murica, and that’s assuming they only focus on Alaska. Even if USA only had 1/3 of its current military, it’d send the Russians packing due to logistical advantage.
The only other route for Russia, China or anyone to invade is to use Cuba as a staging ground, which is not only very susceptible to a naval blockade, it’s also within range of fuckloads of USA missiles.
Did they ever catch the pilots that did the 9/11s? I’ve been assured that they were cowards who hated freedom.
The US DoD is for protecting economic interests more than anything.
We already give a fuck ton of money to healthcare, even more than we give to the defense budget. The problem is that too much of our money goes to lobbying, pharma companies, medical companies, hospital Administrators, and other greedy fucks. We pay health insurance and most of the time they try to screw us over. What we need is paying for stuff that will actually go directly to us. Throwing as much money as possible doesn’t help, we need to make sure that the money goes where we want it to go.
Federal Spending budget:
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/
THIS HAS GOT TO FUCKING STOP!!! THE WEAPONS CO.OANIES MUST BE NATIONALIZED!! NOTHING WILL EVER CHANGE UNTIL LOBBYISTS ARE IMPRISONED FOR BRIBES! ELECT ME AND I WILL PUT AND END TO THIS BULLSHIT
Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Don Davis (D-NC), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), Jared Golden (D-ME), Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX) and Mary Peltola (D-AK)
Cuellar, of course.
895 TRILLION to main, kill and destroy others and militarize police. Our own people living in cars and sleeping rough.
Why is this being downvoted?
Because it’s 3 commas not 4. So billions, not trillions
I see little to no difference. Plus, I think he made a typo. Most people do know pentagon budgets are typically in trillions.
I am with you on the fact that Lemmy seems a little trigger happy on the downvotes sometimes. Sometimes a mistake is just a mistake
Not that it makes the situation that much better, but that’s $895 Billion, not Trillion
Lol! I feel dumb. 🤡
So many assholes, looking at the votes…
bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe LoL aMiRiTe WhY bOThEr VoTiNg, being egged on by his palDimitriJessie on social media, to keep his purity intact by not bothering to vote.So. Who u guys defending against?
Mexico? Canada?
Communism and Terrorism. If we just shoot those ideas enough…
The funding helps keep the portal closed. If we slip up, it’s all over for humanity.
We have to keep pouring oil into The Emperor of Mankind, otherwise the warp will consume us.
No one. We’re funneling tax dollars into arm’s manufacturers pockets, and the pockets of their shareholders. 'Murica.
What the fuck are they defending if we’re all already dead? Fucking greedy bastards
Why would healthcare be in the defense budget?
This is $3000 per American. We could easily cut it in half and allocate the savings to something useful, like healthcare.
Bear in mind you already spend more per capita on healthcare than countries with universal healthcare , it’s just you don’t get anything for it, except the opportunity to make some different billionaires richer
So yeah you could add it to that and I dunno, buy some megayachts for someone or something
We don’t need to. We could take the existing amount spent on healthcare, re-organize as universal healtch care single payer, and spend the same amount.
The soldiers need it
They got money for wars…
That’s usually what a defense budget is for.
The healthcare budget is for healthcare strangely enough.
SatansMagotyCumFart, are you being intentionally or unintentionally dense?
Unintentionally I guess, I just wonder what the defense budget has to do with healthcare.
There should be less defense budget and more healthcare budget
What’s funny is that there should be less healthcare budget because the current cost per capita for the whole US is the highest in the world even though public healthcare only covers a minority of people. If actual universal public healthcare was implemented like in any rich country then healthcare spendings would go down dramatically.
I think
There should be less defense budget
Is the reason tankies brought this post up. They don’t actually give a shit about health care.
We already spend more on healthcare per capita than almost every other country.
More healthcare budget won’t give us universal health care. All we need is the existing budget, plus single payer.
I think everyone thirteen and older should get government-supplied methamphetamine rations to increase the GDP.
I think you should take the entire ration of gov supply meth. Oh sheeeeet I believe you already did.
I don’t know much about this topic, but I’m seeing a lot of uncontested claims of “us spends more on healthcare per capita” in this thread, leading me to believe that more money won’t fix the underlying problem.
Okay, I know that user, and they’re a fuckwit, but they’re right. If you think defense spending is why we don’t have universal health care, you’re extremely uninformed.
Which is somewhat excusable if you’re not American, but if your are, for shame, my dudes.
It wouldnt, but this is the reason we “can’t afford” healthcare
What’s funny is that your government pays more per capita than anywhere else in the world for healthcare, so you can actually afford it without cutting the defense budget
It’s not though, tax cuts are responsible for that, and obstinance in the face of potential tax increases
The most insidious part of this is people will say, “any price to keep us safe.” Nevermind that a resource draining military is a catch22 proven idiotic by history time and time again, and we shouldn’t be funding it at all. The money we are spending is absolutely not going to keep us safe. It goes to the heads of weapons manufacturers so that they can manipulate governments into buying their products and provke wars to create demand. As a veteran i can tell you it sure as shit doesn’t go towards paying members of the military, it doesn’t go towards buying top of the line equipment to keep us safe, and definitely not towards maintaining the broke ass equipment that the military has now. Even if you like the military, the best thing you can do is to topple the military industrial complex and advocate for less spending.
a resource draining military is a catch22 proven idiotic by history time and time again, and we shouldn’t be funding it at all.
What, so Russia can invade us? You think any of us are that stupid?
That’s right, the only thing stopping those vile ruskies from Red Dawn’ing all over our beautiful homeland is our $52,000 trash cans and $14,000 toilet seats. Freedom isn’t free 🫡🇱🇷
Fuck tankies, and fuck Putin
I’d rather not.
The MIC thanks you for your service, brave patriot 🫡🫡🫡
Damn right
You gotta highlight sarcasm nowadays
