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.”
Note that a significant amount of the interceptor missiles and planes used were American and a small part British, so israel is not footing this bill by itself.
This is just one reason why the US doesn’t have public health care.
The main reason isn’t cost, it’s republicans.
I keep telling people we already spend more than other places but they don’t get it. Waiting til you’re in the ER with a preventable issue is always going to be the least cost effective
And that’s the reason so many low-income counties are losing their hospitals.
No, that’s because private equity bought them up and drained them. Just like they do with other companies. It’s not the sole reason but it is a reason.
https://lowninstitute.org/the-rising-danger-of-private-equity-in-healthcare/amp/
Hospitals should he government owned, non-profit, etc. they stocks not be private equity owneds.
Absolutely, but they were first financially extended through the use of required care by people who couldn’t pay their medical bills. Those institutions then preyed on the struggling hospitals.
“Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.”
That’s BS the US is already spending as many federal tax payer dollars per capita on healthcare as the UK is spending on the NHS. That’s not to say that the funding of the NHS is stellar but the service level is also in no way abysmal. Long story short: US taxpayers are not even close to getting their money’s worth because most of it is funnelled to private profits, not actual healthcare. Military has nothing to do with it the US could double the medical budget and it wouldn’t make a dent in the military budget.
The issue has and always will be that Medicare for all takes money away from the billionaire class.
Privatization is the reason for “small government”
I don’t seriously doubt this, but would like to verify. Links?
The WHO has all the data you could wish for. Long story short: About 55% of US health spending is public (as opposed to out of pocket or insurance), about 80% in the UK is public (covering the whole of the NHS) and here’s a nice overview from the world bank the UK has a total per-capita expenditure of $5,634 while the US clocks in at $11,702.
Oh and I kinda blanked on that: Not all of that is due to profit, much of it is plain inefficiency. E.g. people not going to the doctor because they can’t afford it, then making acquaintance with the ER even though it was avoidable, and the state picking up the bill to bail out hospitals because the patient can’t pay. Would’ve been much cheaper for the tax payer to cover that initial doctor’s visit and cheap preventive medicine.
The other reason being that grifters in the healthcare business gonna grift.
Enjoy your freedom potholes.
This and the almost $1trillion military budget. “You want money to bomb other nations? Absolutely, here, unlimited supply of money. Healthcare and education for the people who pay for the military? Nah fuck them, how are we gonna pay for it?”
We spent 4.5 trillion on healthcare. We spent 886 billion on military including healthcare. Public health comes down to one question. How much more in taxes do you want to pay to cover it? I fully support it but just expect your taxes to consume a large part of your income. Since about 1/2 of people pay taxes. That’s a burden of about 26k per person to cover to it.
You’re touching on the most common misconception. Most people would pay less in taxes than they currently do in insurance premiums. The cost of healthcare would go down in the US with single payer. Even the ultra conservative Koch family funded Cato Institute found this to be true.
There is way too much profit motive in the US healthcare system. So much so we pay double what other nations do for some procedures with generally worse outcomes. Last report I saw is the US spends 16% of GDP on healthcare. The next closest nation was Japan at 10%. Yet the US was among the lowest life expectancy of all G20 nations.
Cite the Cato report. I have not seen a report that said cost would significantly cost but the standard of care would stay the same
https://www.cato.org/commentary/no-medicare-all-wont-save-money
Because they wouldn’t admit that. What they did say is costs over next 10 years with single payer would be $36T. Without then admitting the cost of keeping our current setup is estimated at $42T.
https://www.cato.org/commentary/covid-19-crisis-doesnt-argue-single-payer-health-care
Thank you. I’ll read that later tonight.
Maybe we should stop giving tax cuts for trillion dollar companies or ask them cover complete healthcare for their employees.
In a profit driven system with much of it preventable in the right system.
In most cases I’m not against profit. Due to the inelastic demand of medicine and the lack of true choice, I think profit should be limited.
Who’s covering it now?
Insurance. Employers, people.
Even the year I had 3 surgeries I didn’t pay 26k out of pocket. I paid like 8k.
As I said I’m not opposed but I’m also not foolish enough to think the average persons taxes won’t radically increase.
The math has been done a number of times on this. 2016 and 2020 the Sanders campaign did it then a number of independent think tanks and institutes “fact checked” it.
At current levels of care most would expect to pay less.
At the level of care where we’re no longer subsidizing emergency services for preventable diseases almost all would expect to pay less still.
They won’t radically increase unless we get grifted.
It’s hard to explain how saving money would equate to us paying more so I’m interested in the how.
Sanders is an idiot who is wrong about almost everything. He didn’t even understand how Income Works. He wants to tax wealth which he can’t grasp is unconstitutional.
I would cite Bernie if you want anyone to take you serious. Nice man, just not very smart.
Christ dude I literally “cited” the campaign of Sanders that put out an idea as a platform and backed it with research and examples from the rest of the world.
The studies were not done by Bernie Sanders himself but even had they been I’d dare you to refute them intelligently.
You talk as if we ought to respect you but that also informs your opinion has no credibility.
You didn’t cite anything. You made a claim. A citation would have something I could verify. A claim is something I can’t verify. If Bernie is quoting it, it’s probably wrong. That man is dumb as a box of rocks.
If you’d like to cite the Cato report, I’d love to read it. I can’t find it as you claimed
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.
Removed by mod