Our taxes fund more public health dollars per capita than almost anywhere else in the world. Medicare and Medicaid spending is higher than DOD budget, and that’s before you include medical research funded by NIH and DOD or VA spending.
The issue is that our prices are out of control because of regulatory capture and downstream inability of the government to negotiate lower prices.
What we need are price controls.
It’s working as intended.
There’s a lot of money to be made in making sure the US Govt isn’t paying minimum dollar for goods and services, be it healthcare or military spending.
It’s about stealing everything they can between those that need and those that provide.
Insurance companies. Middle management. It’s everywhere. Needless spending that’s made up to create “industry”.
This industry should never have existed in the first place. It’s akin to fire departments standing in front of a burning home until the owner pays up, and if they don’t they get robbed while the place burns.
That was determined by the public to be greed driven, robbery and also fucking illegal.
But the insurance industry does it daily for generations, constantly creating scenarios where people die or become destitute and yet it’s legal?
Somebody explain.
look, your argument is fair but inaccurate. When the Insurance company’s negotiated rate on a heart attack is 14k, but the hospital bills you 300k, then the problem is we’ve allowed for private healthcare to make more sense and forced government funded healthcare to be overly complex.
Let me repeat this but in capitalism, we have DONE THIS PURPOSELY so that private healthcare companies can make money.
“The issue is that our prices are out of control because of regulatory capture and downstream unwillingness of the governmemt to negotiate lower prices.”
FIFY!
It’s not about unwillingness. Negotiating lower prices requires collective bargaining. In the US there are so many different insurance companies and each one has to negotiate prices for its relatively small pool. Contrast that with countries like Canada which have a single system, giving them the ability to negotiate prices for the whole country.
I wouldn’t call it unwillingness, Obama did try to create a public option.
That’s what happens if you don’t have public health care.
A small insurer or even an uninsured person cannot bargain with large pharma companies. If they try to, the pharma company will just not sell the product, because it’s more expensive for them to lower the prices for everyone compared to losing one small customer.
But if your whole country’s health system bargains at once, it can get much better deals, because not taking a deal means for the pharma company that they’ll lose access to millions of potential customers.
That’s why for example in Europe Insulin costs about 10% per dose compared to what people in the USA have to pay.
Our tax dollars fund more corporations than other countries. The military spends so much because they pay private companies for their equipment, which is sold at inflated costs because they can. The US spends a shit ton on health care because private companies inflate their prices because, again, they can. The government/insurance companies don’t even pay the full price that’s listed on the bill, but they still use the original numbers.
You can’t compare our spending to other countries. The US spends more because they pay inflated prices. Citizens spend less because we can’t afford to get health care.
so if they put such a generous amount in, why isn’t healthcare free then, like in Europe? if i have the flu and go to the doctor, even the medication they prescribe is subsidised, i pay max 6 bucks for everything
Insurance companies. Because of the way they operate, healthcare providers are forced to raise prices as high as possible so that they can actually afford to operate once the insurance companies negotiate the lowest price for care they can.
And then the insurance companies charge consumers high prices anyway and pocket the difference.
It’s not regulatory capture, it’s a complete lack of federal regulatory guidelines in regard to the insurance industry.
for a medical service provider to be insured (and thus not be destroyed by the first malpractice suit they lose) they need insurance, the insurance companies have their own stipulations onto the healthcare provider, like all their stuff being certified, now guess who owns the respective certification companies? letting them charge whatever they damned well please…
it’s straight up duopolistic markets
I don’t like paying taxes, but holy hell not having the things they’re supposed to pay for sucks. You ever use a toll road or get caught in an intentional speed trap? Holy hell it sucks. And also we’re only kinda sure our food is safe and our medicine works. But the cops have tanks and the beef and gas are subsidized
I mean toll roads make sense, I’m not sure why we’re expected to pay to use public transport but not roads, when roads are far more expensive to maintain and us driving literally causes them to be damaged.
If roads and parking are free then public transit should be free. Otherwise toll roads are fine by me, although they’re technically a regressive charge in the US and Canada since you’re kind of forced to use a car in most areas… I mean car dependence itself is a giant regressive charge so that’s just one part of it.
But assuming we had actual functional transportation infrastructure, toll roads would actually be preferrable near more densely populated areas since it makes you think twice about using your car instead of taking a train or biking.
The way toll roads work in a lot of places is that they are built with public funds, then a private operator gets a lease for a set amount of time and gets the lion’s share of the revenue.
And yes, public transport should be free.
Won’t that encourage overuse of transport, which will actually make it harder to reach emissions targets and similar?
Why shouldn’t you pay for using car infrastructure? You’re damaging the environment and damaging the roads, it’s a lot more sensical for the cost to be put on you, the driver, instead of burdening everyone else with higher income/sales taxes.
Gas tax is pretty much nothing in the US… the minimum gas tax is about 3x higher in Europe (and it’s usually much higher). The amount that people from areas prone to having high rates of driving (suburbs for example) pay in taxes is highly disproportionate to the amount car infrastructure costs.
Plus using things like toll roads means you can reduce the car infrastructure tax everyone pays a lot, currently if you’re not a driver or don’t drive that much you generally pay the same amount (or maybe slightly less with tax credits if you’re eligible) as someone that drives constantly. Which is pretty terrible – using cars as the primary mode of transport is just bad for society, and it should be looked to reduce it as much as possible. My taxes shouldn’t be going to funding unnecessary car deaths or mass pollution etc. etc., and cars are one of the largest causes of pollution on the planet.
Gas tax doesn’t do much in that regard, sure it’s a minor environment tax but those who don’t drive are still subsidizing the people who do. Ideally it should be the other way around – people who drive who don’t need to drive should be subsidizing those who don’t drive.
It’s just a matter of how much they want to invest in what.
In many cases toll roads mean that the government didn’t want to/wasn’t able to invest in building a road, so they let a private for-profit company do it for “free” (meaning without tax money) and that company then recoups their investment using toll.
Some times toll roads are used to steer traffic. Some cities for example have a city toll that’s meant to discourage commuters from using their car to get into the city and instead get them to use public transport.
The first case means the country doesn’t raise enough tax, wastes too much tax money or has other priorities than road infrastructure.
The second case is totally valid since it uses tax to discourage unwanted behaviour.
A controversial take apparently, but yes. A big part of the reason everything was able to become car-centric is because we’re effectively subsidising driving by providing the infrastructure for free, both parking and road.
You can also go the route of a hypothecated tax by mileage, which is probably more convenient.
[Slaps hood]
This baby can bomb soooo many third world countries
Notice that taxes don’t have the same vile vitrol against them outside of America? They get something for their money.
One of my theories is that not only is it about how these taxes get used (as in the OP), but also in the US you have these constant reminders, it’s not added to your restaurant bills or supermarket prices until the end, you have to calculate it yourself all the time and that keeps it front of mind. I never used to even think about tax until I started my own business (since now I don’t have to pay it for business expenses). When something costs 100€ it costs 100€, you don’t think about the fact 20 of them are tax because you, as a consumer, pay 100 and that’s that. Same with salary, it gets taken at the source and once a year you just need to verify, and usually you get some money back making it a positive experience.
Yeah I never understand why tax is not included in the sales price, just seems arbitrary to exclude that. It is definitely been uncomfortable, back in the days when I used to use cash, and I would have just enough for like a burger or something,
Only to realize that I had enough for the price on the menu but I didn’t have enough for the tax. It’s just annoying
A society requires governance. Staff to set and enforce rules, staff and supplies to execute services which provide social and physical infrastructure.
Certain things every community needs: Healthcare, education, transportation, utilities, support services for special needs, safety, rehabilitation for rule breakers, etc.
A government can figure out how to provide these services (with in-house or out-sourced expertise) and provide you with one bill (taxes). Or they can privatize a service, meaning you still need it and they may regulate it, but you’ll be paying someone else for that service.
The value of taxes should be considered in this light. How much do I pay for all the services me and my community needs, and what portion of that is taxes. Then compare to other countries to see how well our governance system is functioning.
Does privatization save cost? What balance of regulation keeps things affordable vs driving up expenses? What balance of in-house expertise vs outsourcing is the most functional? What is the cost to quality of life having to pay bills to 15 organizations vs one? Where is there an extra heavy burden of cost and what can we do through regulation to fix it? These are the questions we should be interested in when it comes to governance, an elected official’s personality or opinions should be negligible factors.
I pretty much agree, taxation is only theft in america, and the only reason for that is because we are getting anything for our taxes outside of a bunch of dead third world children. Which doesn’t really help me put food in my stomach, or treat the stuff in my brain that causes memory problems and could possibly kill me when I turn 40.
I know the point you’re trying to make, but generalisations like these aren’t helpful. After all, the UK have voted for the Tories for around 13 years, who are notoriously a low-tax party, and have a lot of support from wealthier people and self-employed people that don’t like their money aiding others.
They shafted that notoriety by imposing the highest tax burden since the Black Death.
Arguably, the Conservatives under Boris were a populist party that exiled the vast majority of conservative MP’s that still believed in traditional conservatism. Pair this with Brexit, and we ended up in a position where the only path forward is higher taxes or (further) financial ruin.
The party will always be one of low taxes, and conservative values, but not until Sunak is out, and the rats leave the ship. Funny enough, the skilled trades and southern professionals still see the Tories in that light, even though they’re basically the Brexit Party right now…
Yeah but fuck Britain.
We know what it’s really all about, they are afraid of immigrants and foreigners. The taxes are just an excuse.
You don’t see the temporarily embarrassed millionaire phenomenon over there. I mean the leftist party there is literally called Labor and is still much further to the left than the Democrats are, here A labor movement idea is too toxic to consider simply because too many dumbasses will happily lick boots leaving falsely, that they will be the ones wearing the boots someday.
It’s not even a nice military though! Failed audit after failed audit showing billions of dollars not accounted for. When you enlist, one of the trainings you get is how to sign up for WIC, because they don’t even pay you enough to feed a family (at first) if you lay down your life. This country is a joke from the outside, and a nightmare to live in.
In the 2000s, military applications were through the roof. I went to a poor urban school. And the promises of joining the military was discipline and support. We were already on WIC and couldn’t find a job, what makes this any different?
A decade later, all my friends who joined the military are struggling in dead end jobs and constantly complain about the lack of support. And they’re worse off than before… Just now with trauma.
