You're a car accident away from looking at this from a whole different perspective.  Healthcare isn't just about taking care of yourself.  What if you get cancer?  Hell, a snake bite ($153,000).  Healthy people are not immune to accidents, diseases, and other medical conditions.

Your right but now look at the perspective your taking. Your essentially saying that regardless of what I think or want I should be forced to pay into healthcare because something could happen to me. Instead of letting me be an adult and decide when I need health insurance and when I don't. So how far do we take this? We've already decided that people aren't smart enough to save for retirement so we created SS and that's being ruined already.

So do we stop people from smoking cigs? Do we stop people from over eating? How far and how intrusive do we allow the government to be in order to protect us from ourselves and how well do you trust them to do that responsibly with your money? The same people who constantly seem to need to increase the defense budget nonstop but can't be bothered to reduce it so they can help there fellow citizens. The same people who said they would help us save for our retirement and now it's only a matter of time until there's not enough left.

Directly through foreign aid? Let's keep the crackpot conspiracy theories without a shred of evidence to a minimum please.
The people in those countries decided that their tax money would go to these programs. Human rights are prioritized over anything else and would naturally be funded regardless of whether or not they received foreign aid.
That's about as clever of an argument as claiming that China is directly funding *insert US institution* because the majority of USA's national debt is with China...
USA currently owes China 1.18 trillion USD as of May 2018. 

Although to further illustrate how nonsensical the notion you brought up is, I looked into how much Sweden pays in foreign aid to other countries:



https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/which-countries-does-swedish-foreign-aid-oda-go-to.html

Do you realize that you're talking about developed countries? They're among the list of highest foreign aid donors in the world. Not receivers.
Relative to our size and economy, we pay A LOT more than USA does.




And you expect me to believe that we pay all these billions in foreign aid to other countries, but can't afford healthcare on our own?
I think you're confusing the countries on that list with developing nations. Sweden actually has some of the highest income taxes in the world.
We can afford to pay for our shit. To say the least.

Before you start worrying about what USA is responsible for providing other countries with, start by worrying about what they do for their own people first.
Although on that note, we pay 1.36% of our GNI in foreign aid, and USA only pays 0.15% of theirs. Step up your game?

As for "we have to increase our drug prices to make up for lost revenue" again, where is the evidence of this claim? Pharmaceutical companies commonly top the annual highest grossing charts. I don't see what losses they have to make up for.

And as SpokenTruth pointed out, the majority of the 23 largest pharmaceutical companies are located in other countries. Not USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_pharmaceutical_companies_by_revenue

Tell me again how these EU/Asian companies would be losing money, if not for USA overcharging for their drugs?
We're responsible for a substantial amount of medical research and advancements on our own. I don't know where you got the idea that USA is funding the majority of everything in the world. And you seem to confuse countries like Japan, Australia and UK to countries like Zimbabwe when it comes to reliance of foreign aid.

From what I understand, at least in the countries I've lived in (Sweden, Australia, Japan) we have no shortage of high quality health care. My mom's doctor a few years back was one of the leading expert in research in his field in the world.

It's easier to accept that people may have been misinformed but have good intentions. What's not as easy to accept, although it is sadly a reality, is that there are people who simply do not empathize with other people who are not in their circle of family and friends, if it comes at their expense in any way.
Especially if they belong to a group they don't like. Such as poor people. There will be assumptions that they're poor because they're lazy, and they're sick because they just didn't take care of themselves.

But the moment it happens to them, and it hits them like a ton of bricks that even if you have a full time job, and even if you took every measure to take care of yourself, some times people are simply unlucky. And at that point, if their insurance doesn't cover what they need, then they realize what they couldn't when it was just about other people.
I've seen a few examples of this where people who  criticize Universal Healthcare as "theft" and that everyone should pay for themselves, make gofundme pages to fund their medical expenses some months later when they're the ones finding themselves in a situation
.

Directly through foreign aid? Let's keep the crackpot conspiracy theories without a shred of evidence to a minimum please.
The people in those countries decided that their tax money would go to these programs. Human rights are prioritized over anything else and would naturally be funded regardless of whether or not they received foreign aid.
That's about as clever of an argument as claiming that China is directly funding *insert US institution* because the majority of USA's national debt is with China...
USA currently owes China 1.18 trillion USD as of May 2018. 

Although to further illustrate how nonsensical the notion you brought up is, I looked into how much Sweden pays in foreign aid to other countries:



https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/which-countries-does-swedish-foreign-aid-oda-go-to.html

Do you realize that you're talking about developed countries? They're among the list of highest foreign aid donors in the world. Not receivers.
Relative to our size and economy, we pay A LOT more than USA does.




And you expect me to believe that we pay all these billions in foreign aid to other countries, but can't afford healthcare on our own?
I think you're confusing the countries on that list with developing nations. Sweden actually has some of the highest income taxes in the world.
We can afford to pay for our shit. To say the least.

Before you start worrying about what USA is responsible for providing other countries with, start by worrying about what they do for their own people first.
Although on that note, we pay 1.36% of our GNI in foreign aid, and USA only pays 0.15% of theirs. Step up your game?

As for "we have to increase our drug prices to make up for lost revenue" again, where is the evidence of this claim? Pharmaceutical companies commonly top the annual highest grossing charts. I don't see what losses they have to make up for.

You'll notice I didn't limit my statement to USAID, 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. 

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.

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. 

I think you're mixing up Sweden with Switzerland in regards to the your neutrality reference... 

Also, the idea that selling drugs to counties outside the US not being profitable doesn't make any sense, otherwise why would they be selling them there?

I believe that the majority of healthcare is a service and sickly people are not entitled to it at the expense of everyone. No one is stopping you from making more money to buy what you want. Change plans or something. I do need some stuff done that's expensive but I don't think I'm entitled to it at no cost to me. Life saving treatments/meds/procedure are the only things I consider that people have an entitlement with at low cost.

 In my opinion, insurance companies are the main contributing factor in why healthcare is so expensive. I think the healthcare insurance system needs to be reworked to reduce the costs and change what's covered or done away with completely. Maybe replace it with a cash only/affordable financing for expensive treatments. I noticed that most of the meds/treatments not covered by insurance are priced reasonably.  I completely disagree with UHC. Just because some people are doing something doesn't make it the smart or right choice.

"-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.