Tyler_JC wrote:Maybe if we didn't have to pay for Europe's defense for the past sixty years we could have used that money to provide health care for the American public?
The EU has been under-investing in its own defense for decades. If that burden were to shift from US taxpayers to European (and Japanese, South Korean, Israeli, etc. etc.) taxpayers, I wonder what the effect would be on social spending.
I think you're oversimplifying things here. It was in the US' own interest to have a presence on the continent.
Yes, maybe that would have lead to a "social investment" but you have to look at the speech that Churchill gave in Congress in order for the UK to borrow money. The US Congress did not want to give money, mainly because Churchill wanted to spent money on the NHS, something many in Congress considered a "waste of money" and didn't want to pay for.
Judging by this, I think it is clear to say that even if the US would not have "defended Europe" (read, got itself a military foothold in Europe) it would still not have instituted a "European Style Healthcare System".
I know it sounds like a tired old argument but think about it in a historical context. The UK created its NHS in 1948. Would they have been able to afford that program were it not for America's security blanket?
Would Germany have been able to afford its Post WW2 health care were it not for American development aid and the tens of thousands of Americans soldiers standing guard against Soviet invasion?
America's defensive largess freed up money for other countries to invest in health care.
Germany had a "public health" option that goes back to the late 19th century, it wasn't anything new, it could afford it before the war and it would have put the money back there after. It comes down to where you want to spend the money.
Again, judging by the speech Churchill gave and the information that is now available, the simple reality is that in America it was never considered an "opportune thing to do".
Obviously there was a strategic component to America's overseas military obligations and the primary benefactor of this was always the USA. But the positive spillover effect allowed the rest of the industrialized world to spend money on butter, knowing that the guns were being provided by the Yankees.
Now we've reached the point where Americans want tax cuts, guns, AND butter. We obviously can't afford all three. We couldn't even afford the first two (2001-2009...). If Obama is serious about providing decent health care to every American he is going to have to give something up. Based on the absurdly bloated cost-structure we're dealing with in health care, we'll likely have to raise taxes substantially AND cut defense spending.
Well, you forgot another one: Raise taxes (especially for high-income and corporations), additionally, cutting down on the private option (and only allow supplemental coverage) would cut the cost down heavily, as there would be only ONE buyer for a lot of the expensive drugs etc.
Additionally, it is somewhat ironic that America (and American companies) pride themselves so much in efficeny, but the managment of the American healthcare system is one of the most inefficent systems in the world, not in the least because of the vast amount of different insurers who all cook their own little soup with only slight variations of the recipe.
