Hiku said:
"-CraZed- said: You'll notice I didn't limit my statement to US AID, I also addressed trade and security and the UN that by far the US pays the lion's share. And, yes I know Sweden isn't officially part of NATO. But Sweden has benefited from the relatively stable and secure Europe that NATO provides. As a US citizen I shouldn't worry about what or who my government chooses to support through my tax dollars? Of course I should. And also as an American citizen I like to to do for myself first so as to not burden others, then I look for worthy opportunities to be charitable and giving in my spare time with my spare resources. I don't rely on bureaucrats thousands of miles away from me to help those in need I involve myself directly."
I noticed that there was no punctuation or effort to distinguish between the two claims, as if USA was responsible for both. It was one single sentence and statement. Either way, more importantly I noticed that you didn't give any specifics on that subject whatsoever. Who are we (all the countries on the list) receiving all this insane foreign aid from? And how much? And what evidence supports that any of the countries on this list funds their healthcare directly from this? Why are you doubling down on this absurd notion that we are heavily reliant on foreign aid when we are among the top donors of foreign aid in the world? We would not be sending away billions to developing nations if we didn't have enough to cover ourselves, and then some. We spend on human rights first. Everyone has a right to live. Everything else comes second.
And I didn't say don't worry about where your tax money goes. I said start by focusing on what it does for you first. USA is the only industrialized country in the world where healthcare isn't a human right. And the only one where the government can't negotiate drug prices. It's not a coincidence your healthcare costs have skyrocketed.
And while USA has contributed to NATO and the stability in the EU region, drawing a direct correlation between that and what we chose to spend our taxes on is something else... Sure, if we got bombed, things wouldn't be so peachy. But aside from the fact that USA is not the only member of NATO (although the strongest), all the other countries in the region, EU and UN members included, play a large part in why stability has remained. The point here isn't what we have, but what we chose to spend what we have on. And USA can certainly afford this.
"-CraZed- said: Even at 0.15%, it is still the single largest amount of foreign aid paid out through our tax dollars. But you want us to step up our game yeah? How about this or this? Would that work for ya? The US regularly leads the world in private sector and charitable giving. Or perhaps the CAF report might be of interest to you. The US over the last 5 years has been no. 2 just behind Myanmar as the most charitable country where as Sweden doesn't even rank. In fact last year Sweden was no. 34 and the US no. 5. Love you Sweden, with your neutrality and Ikea (I've had my original Hemnes bed frame for years) but the US really is one of, if not the most, generous nations on the planet, even ahead of our friends from Sverige."
We are on the subject of government spending though. Philanthropy from the private sector is great, but that involves a lot of factors unrelated to government spending. There are a lot of generous wealthy people in the world. But there are also those who are very greedy. The former can offset some of the harm that the latter cause, but they shouldn't have to. You can also attribute USA's high ranking on the list of private donors to USA being a paradise for the rich, which is why many wealthy people move there.
We were never on the subject of private donations, but government spending. Individuals can't and shouldn't be expected to match or make up for government spending. And on that note it's ironic how you boast about countries with UHC being reliant on foreign aid (along with military security), and mentioning one certain country being responsible for all of it in the same sentence. Though none of those countries are obviously top beneficiaries from USA, or likely anywhere else really.
Here's a list of the top 25 countries USA gives foreign aid to:
You said "all of them". Which of these countries match the list of countries with Universal Healthcare? Spoiler alert: none. So if not USA, who are these mysterious countries who's foreign aid we are so reliant on for healthcare?
It's almost as if you think that in many of those countries everyone is still riding around on horses and they just invented the steam boat or something. If not, what made you come up with the idea of being reliant on foreign aid to pay for their healthcare? You're talking about some of the worlds most developed nations and strongest economic powers. And they all pretty much rank higher than USA on any lists you can find about highest ranked living standards in the world. It's almost as if people not dying because they can't afford to live makes people happier. Go figure? (Feel free to find one that shows USA ranking among the top. I have not seen one to this day so I'd genuinely like to know if it exists.)
"-CraZed- said: So you honestly think that drug companies despite being "highest grossing," that they don't need to or would want to make up the difference anywhere they can? Why then, does the pharma industry often oppose legislation to allow US citizens to purchase medications from outside the country? Because it would hurt their bottom line. I get why they wouldn't want it to happen, it isn't cheap to develop a new drug so the downward pressure on pricing has to be made up elsewhere. That elsewhere is the US market. "
What "difference"? You mean compared to the average prices of medicine around the world? The difference comes from them hiking up prices in the US. If these companies commonly top the lists of highest grossing companies each year, they don't have to make up for any losses because they by definition have none. As in they're always in the black in the books at the end of the fiscal year. Not in the red. And that's putting it mildly. They oppose legislation like that because they can, and because it earns them more money. The pharmaceutical industry "donates" millions to politicians, who then "coincidentally" vote in their favor when these things come up. Take Democrat Cory Booker for example who sided with Republicans on this very issue. https://theslot.jezebel.com/for-some-reason-cory-booker-and-12-other-dems-killed-a-1791116094
While Republicans are commonly the main offenders in taking corporate donations, plenty of Democrats do as well, and so you have situations like these. I'm sure the $267.000 he received from the pharmaceutical industry played no part in his vote. His reasoning was that Canada doesn't have the same regulations for drugs as USA, but that fell on deaf ears as Canada has more strict healthcare regulations than USA does. And he personally voted to weaken healthcare regulations in the US just a few months before that....
P.S. My post got messed up so I had to remove the quote boxes to fix it.
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I'm not great at the quoting system so I'll have to copy and paste...
"Hiku said:
I noticed that there was no punctuation or effort to distinguish between the two claims, as if USA was responsible for both. It was one single sentence and statement.
Either way, more importantly I noticed that you didn't give any specifics on that subject whatsoever. Who are we (all the countries on the list) receiving all this insane foreign aid from? And how much? And what evidence supports that any of the countries on this list funds their healthcare directly from this?
Why are you doubling down on this absurd notion that we are heavily reliant on foreign aid when we are among the top donors of foreign aid in the world? We would not be sending away billions to developing nations if we didn't have enough to cover ourselves, and then some.
We spend on human rights first. Everyone has a right to live. Everything else comes second."
Here is my original quote verbatim: "Every single country on that list is either subsidized directly through foreign aid or a beneficiary of the unbalanced NATO, NAFTA and UN protections provided by the one country that doesn't have a wholly socialized medical system." I've highlighted the operative words in that statement. I really detest arguing over semantics but in this case it seems necessary, There are multiple attributions in that statement and I am unsure how one would arrive at the conclusion that I said every single country on that list of check boxed countries receives US foreign aid specifically. Again the words either and or qualifies that statement which is why when you brought up Sweden, I mentioned that Sweden's security and well-being as a nation are largely the by-product of a relatively stable geo-politcal climate ensured by NATO and it's largest benefactor, the US and not that Sweden receives any federal foreign aid dollars from the US nor that we were directly funding your healthcare. That was simply not stated nor intended to be inferred.
My assertion is that if many of the countries on that list either (again I'm saying either) didn't receive direct foreign funding from the US, had to shoulder more of the burden of protecting themselves and actually participated in the free exchange of goods instead of hobbling US trade through tariffs and VATs then the socialist policies such as UHC would be untenable.
I'm also unsure how you missed all of the citations I hyperlinked in my posting. It's almost as if you are intentionally attempting to misrepresent my position. Also your graph shows the top 25 countries not all of them that the US gives aid to. And I gave 6 examples of nations on this list https://www.foreignassistance.gov/explore
Actually I supplied 5 and you supplied 1:
Lemme know when you spot it....
"Hiku said:
We are on the subject of government spending though. Philanthropy from the private sector is great, but that involves a lot of factors unrelated to government spending. There are a lot of generous wealthy people in the world. But there are also those who are very greedy. The former can offset some of the harm that the latter cause, but they shouldn't have to. You can also attribute USA's high ranking on the list of private donors to USA being a paradise for the rich, which is why many wealthy people move there.
We were never on the subject of private donations, but government spending. Individuals can't and shouldn't be expected to match or make up for government spending. And on that note it's ironic how you boast about countries with UHC being reliant on foreign aid (along with military security), and mentioning one certain country being responsible for all of it in the same sentence. Though none of those countries are obviously top beneficiaries from USA, or likely anywhere else really."
So is it your assertion that government charity is somehow better or more noble than private charity? How so? Never mind that private charity aid (especially in the US) dwarfs government aid in raw dollar amounts and I would argue in positive results as well. Private charities typically have lower overhead, are directly targeted towards certain goals and don't breed the types of corruption (Clinton Global Initiative notwithstanding) that we see when money is funneled to the host countries through their sometimes corrupt or tyrannical governments. Not to mention that private charities often involve more than just money but also time and personal interaction and volunteerism. I think private charitable giving is rather germane to the subject at hand. As for being offset by greed, is it also your assertion there is no greed in government? And that this greed only offsets private charity? Now that I'd like to see that quantified for sure.
"Hiku said:
What "difference"? You mean compared to the average prices of medicine around the world? The difference comes from them hiking up prices in the US. If these companies commonly top the lists of highest grossing companies each year, they don't have to make up for any losses because they by definition have none. As in they're always in the black in the books at the end of the fiscal year. Not in the red. And that's putting it mildly.
They oppose legislation like that because they can, and because it earns them more money. The pharmaceutical industry "donates" millions to politicians, who then "coincidentally" vote in their favor when these things come up. Take Democrat Cory Booker for example who sided with Republicans on this very issue.
https://theslot.jezebel.com/for-some-reason-cory-booker-and-12-other-dems-killed-a-1791116094
While Republicans are commonly the main offenders in taking corporate donations, plenty of Democrats do as well, and so you have situations like these.
I'm sure the $267.000 he received from the pharmaceutical industry played no part in his vote.
His reasoning was that Canada doesn't have the same regulations for drugs as USA, but that fell on deaf ears as Canada has more strict healthcare regulations than USA does. And he personally voted to weaken healthcare regulations in the US just a few months before that...."
No, the difference in their profit margins. And as I said yes that difference is made up by them hiking up prices in the US. That much we seem to agree on. And part of the reason they do it is because other countries have essential begun price fixing at the expense of the US market. And while I do think that we should be able to purchase pharmaceuticals from other countries I wonder how long said countries would allow that to happen when there is essentially a run the supply of medications in those countries? I'm suspicious that they'd shut it down sooner rather than later.