1 - Simply put 1:1 we pay more for everything. Something as simple as a hospital gown or an IV is far more expensive in the US than other countries. We do this because we have a weaker bargaining position.

Which is why I want money out of politics. I want the state to answer to the people, not the powerful.

2 - Legal opioids lead to spikes in heroine use in communities.  We didn't have the level of heroine use a decade ago, pretty clear correlation.  I stated we focus way too much on illegal cannabis, making it legal would shift focus to cocaine or meth which create real problems. I also stated rehabilitation over punishment because our failure means we should change tactics as continuing to do so and expecting different results is insanity.

I think we just seem to have a very different level of trust in the institutions that represent us.

In Canada, it's straight up illegal for a committee to take a contract when another producer also fills all the requirements, for cheaper. That creates its own problems, of course, but it's a good halt on corruption.

My point was, *if* it's working correctly, a single-payer system should most certainly drive down medical prices by a considerable amount. So it would certainly be a valid explanation for the price differential.

1 - I certainly believe that you pay more. It may be from weaker bargain position or from government regulation, taxes, excess of demand, warranted demand, protection for doctors who can request excessive wages, insurance for bad practice due to crazy sues, etc.

But as I said. If one could opt out to not pay taxes that cover the public health if he so decides that would already make me a happy kupo.

2 - You are not picking the point. I'm not talking about the health problems due to drugs. I'm saying that if USA can't prevent cannabis, heroine, cocaine and the other dozen of illegal drugs to enter the country or to be produced locally how do you think it would be able to control guns entering or being sold illegally?

No one in a powerful position should be trusted, simple as that. You may accept it, but you also need to keep vigilant and not trust of their motives.

"if working well" a company would be more profitable without supervisors, managers, CEO, etc because it would save on wages, but it don't work like that. Similar to X+Y with two positive numbers won't ever be lower than X.

The question is if something being legal or illegal is if it makes a society better.  Cocaine was legal, and it caused real problems so we decided even if people used it illegally it was better to fight it than accept it.  This was tried was alcohol and failed miserably.  It has been an ongoing issue with cannabis and I think it being illegal has done more harm than good.

With guns the question is if buying an AR-15 is illegal or not makes the society better.  We see these shootings and people suggest either to leave them legal, make them illegal, or make acquiring them harder.  Would people still get a hold of them even if they were illegal? Yes, but by that line of thinking laws are useless so why do we bother with coercion tactics at all?  It's that the ill those illegal guns would cause would be less than the current situation.  Australia still has issues, but since it became illegal to get something like an AR-15 mass shootings have dropped.  If they felt the cost was too great or didn't work why haven't they proposed going back to laws they had before?

1) That wasn't my question. My question was in the capacity to making it illegal keep it far from hand. For me all drugs should be legal, but if anyone harm another due to the use of drugs the penalties should be severe, and of course fight on education to prevent people from getting to it, but that is beside the point.

2) Brazil guns are illegal, still we have drug dealers with rocket launchers kkk... but going back to USA, the point is that different than from Australia you wouldn't be able to really prevent people from buying it, so it would not only make the black market bigger, but the population would have less means of defense and criminals more eager to commit crimes using those guns. But sure again for me, guns should be legal and no one would really have to own one besides for sport on shooting range.

Ka-pi96 said: How do you feel about healthcare in your country? The NHS is really good. Not perfect, but it's still great not having to pay when going to the doctor. There's been a lot of controversy about it's finances lately (governments suck at budgeting things, what's new? ) but on a day to day basis I think it still works fine. I nor any of my family have ever had any real problems with it. How do you feel about gun control in your country? I've literally never seen a gun before here in the UK. So I think they're doing a great job on that front!

I agree :)

I'm from UK (England) too, you said exactly what I was thinking :D

I believe that excessive mistrust kills collective progress and leads to a generally miserable society.

It would be foolish to trust everyone in government blindly - however, that is simply not required, in a correctly structured institution. There are a *lot* of people that would be aware of any corruption that could occur, and *any* of them could, and I believe for some, would, be able to create a lawsuit for any such.

What concerns actual expenditure on political salaries, that's fairly insignificant on the scale of a country.

I don't really care about the specific salaries of political, but in Brazil case the rest of their cost is astronomic... but again government are good as long as they aren't big, and politician are acceptable as long as they don't hold to much power.

I think you pick your battles.  We incarcerate tens of thousands of people due to cannabis.  It's a minor drug that causes few issues if used. Compared to meth which is incredibly and deadly.  If we shifted our focus I think we'd be more effective as wouldn't be distracted.  Combating it wouldn't be done through punishment either, these people can be a far greater value to society if they can recover from addiction. Portugal had success in providing lower potent heroine to aid people in removing their dependence on the drug.

You keep going back to Brasil which always leaves us at a gap.  I don't see why it is a better example than Japan which has dramatically lower gun ownership and crime than the US.  These issues are multi faceted problems within societies.  Majority of low level crime comes from wealth inequality and lack of prospects. 

I go back to Brazil because USA is a continental size country with 300M population (akin to Brazil), while Japan is completely different. And both are failing at doing drug control.

Sure someone should pick its battle, but when USA is unable to fight against any and all illegal drugs and people abuse even on legal ones, why do you think they would be totally capable of controlling guns if they were made illegal? Because I'm not a gun lover, so if no one would be able to have a gun I would have no issue... but as long as there is a good probability that a criminal is capable of getting a gun I'm not all right with any government saying I can't have one.