It cost Israel more than $1bn to activate its defence systems that intercepted Iran’s massive drone and missile attack overnight, according to a former financial adviser to Israel’s military.
“The defence tonight was on the order of 4-5bn shekels [$1-1.3bn] per night,” estimated Brigadier General Reem Aminoach in an interview with Ynet news.
“If we’re talking about ballistic missiles that need to be brought down with an Arrow system, cruise missiles that need to be brought down with other missiles, and UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles], which we actually bring down mainly with fighter jets,” he said.
“Then add up the costs - $3.5m for an Arrow missile, $1m for a David’s Sling, such and such costs for jets. An order of magnitude of 4-5bn shekels.”
If you would ignore your arrogance and lack of self awareness for a second, you could venture slightly outside the US for a comparison.
Case in point: Germany. We do have a mixture of semi-public and private insurances, and I would argue on average better health care access than the US right now. Insurance rates for the default public insurance is something like 8% of your income before taxes, plus the same amount paid by your employer. It’s capped at about 420€ per month (so and 850€ including employer part). This insurance includes dependent children “for free”, and if you’re unemployed you’ll get insurance paid for you.
So in short, 8% of your income, but never above 420€. Hardly any out of pocket payments. Comparable standard of care.
That means, it’s absolutely possible, it’s just that some people are dense enough to almost collapse into themselves and prefer to be screwed over.
As I said I have no issues with changing our system. Just the average person doesn’t get they will pay more.
I pay about 2400 a year for all my medical needs. That’s less than 1% of my income. Not even close to 8% and well below 420 euros.
It’ll change the burden from the employer to the person which I’m fine with but the employers won’t just hand that money to you. So it increases your cost and increases their profits.
We have to figure out an intelligent way to do it. Maybe tax revenue of companies to cover 1:2 and the population pays the other half.
Just flipping a switch doesn’t solve the issue.
Are you seriously arguing, that earning 250k a year is even somewhere close to “average”? The average is somewhere around 40k.
Also, wait just a few years until medical bills kick in. There’s an over 50% chance you’ll get cancer at some point. You think you can cover that with 2400 a year?
I make well over 250k a year.
Already had cancer. Still didn’t exceed 2400 a year. Only one year did I exceed 2400 dollars. That years was about 8k but that’s because I have three surgeries crossing a new year. That year I spent about 2% of my income in medical care. I’ve never been able to deduct medical care from my taxes which requires it to exceed 7.5%
I pay about 2400 a year for all my medical needs. That’s less than 1% of my income. Not even close to 8% and well below 420 euros.
Did you just argue that your $2400/year is well below €420/year? At current exchange rates it’s about $447, or about 18% of what you currently pay.
As others have pointed out, single payer is an overall cost save. It’s not hard to imagine creating a tax that companies pay to cover this with the money they will save from not offering insurance to full time employees.
