[QUOTE="topdecktiger, post: 2055665, member: 10530"I'm not wrong. As I told you, you have two choices, universal health care, where everybody gets covered, but it's extremely expensive. Or, you have private sector health care, where some people won't be insured. In your Switzerland example, everyone is required to have health insurance. Soooooooooo, what happens when somebody can't afford insurance, but their mandated to buy it? Yeah, so we're back to the government again.
That leads into another point. You think if the Russians roll in with armored divisions and jet fighter squadrons, the Swiss would have any prayer of stopping them? No, they wouldn't. They would be completely outmanned and outgunned. The real reason the Swiss are protected are the 30,000+ troops we have stationed in Germany (and the rest in various other countries). They (like the other European nations) depend on us for defense. They would not be able to field the kind of military power and protection we provide at their current levels of spending.
And that leads to my final point. You misunderstood me, when you started mentioning the U.S. spends ~3% GDP on defense. My point was not that out military spending precludes us having universal health care. Completely inaccurate. My point was, if these other countries (like Switzerland) had to pay for their
entire defense themselves (i.e. replicating the U.S. military presence), they wouldn't have all this extra money to spend on domestic programs like healthcare. It's because we provide that underlying framework that they are able to channel more of their resources to domestic programs. So, my point is not that the spending hurts us, it's that it artificially helps them. That was my point with the 16-year old kid analogy. These countries are able to avoid a lot of normal expenses, because of the help we provide. They wouldn't be able to do all these things without it.[/QUOTE]
"I'm not wrong. As I told you, you have two choices, universal health care, where everybody gets covered, but it's extremely expensive. Or, you have private sector health care, where some people won't be insured. In your Switzerland example, everyone is required to have health insurance. Soooooooooo, what happens when somebody can't afford insurance, but their mandated to buy it? Yeah, so we're back to the government again."
Oh well, we're moving the goal posts again. Now it has to be not only a private, market-based system that provides universal coverage,
but there can't be any government role at all. That has never been the case, Even in the dark, dreary days before Medicare, there has always been some government role.
"That leads into another point. You think if the Russians roll in with armored divisions and jet fighter squadrons, the Swiss would have any prayer of stopping them? No, they wouldn't. They would be completely outmanned and outgunned. The real reason the Swiss are protected are the 30,000+ troops we have stationed in Germany (and the rest in various other countries). They (like the other European nations) depend on us for defense. They would not be able to field the kind of military power and protection we provide at their current levels of spending."
Interesting. You think that the 60,000 odd American troops scattered around Europe are a greater deterrent than the other 1.3 million NATO troops deployed there. Americans are funny, sometimes.
Not to mention, what kind of a threat do we really face? Taken a look at a map of Europe lately? The Warsaw Pact is gone--in fact, some of the largest countries in the Pact have switched sides. The massive Soviet Union, once a country of 15 republics and 300 million, now has fewer people than Bangladesh, and will have fewer than Mexico in about 10 years.
Moreover, in its only significant military engagement in the 21st century, the Russians pretty much made a mess of things in South Ossetia.
"It was clear that much Russian equipment was obsolete compared even to that of Georgia’s military, which by and large also was equipped with Soviet weapon systems, albeit modernised. Perhaps the greatest worry was breakdowns in command and control, the inability of the army and air force to cooperate efficiently, and poor performance when it came to electronic warfare and the use of precision weapons. This is especially troubling for a country that wants to compete with the West and claim its place as one of a handful of great powers globally rather than satisfy itself with a role as a regional power capable of taking on smaller neighbours."
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09592310902975539
"My point was not that out military spending precludes us having universal health care. Completely inaccurate. My point was, if these other countries (like Switzerland) had to pay for their entire defense themselves (i.e. replicating the U.S. military presence), they wouldn't have all this extra money to spend on domestic programs like healthcare. It's because we provide that underlying framework that they are able to channel more of their resources to domestic programs."
Okay, well to take just one example, France currently puts about 2.3% of its GDP into military spending. For them to match the US level at 3.3%, they would need to reallocate about $24 billion to the military. You don't think they could do that from a overall GDP of $2.6 trillion? I'll answer for you--yeah, they could, and it wouldn't require breaking up the French health care system.
I'm pleased that you appear to agree however, that our military commitments are not preventing us from implementing universal coverage. That is a excuse one often hears--that our global security posture prevents us from making more robust health care expenditures at home.
