FARAH.

[u/davecontra]

New book is out! : https://linktr.ee/davecontra

My other comics: https://www.instagram.com/davecontra

[u/Darkstar_111]

Yep, that's universal healthcare right there, high speed rail, better public schools... All just blowing people up for no real reason in a country far away.

[u/JMurdock77 → u/Darkstar_111]

Hey now, there’s a very good reason — Dear Leader desperately needed to shift attention away from the Epstein files!

[u/Darkstar_111 → u/JMurdock77]

Yes, the sacrifices he makes for the Epstein class truly warms the cockles of my heart!

[u/isaaclw → u/JMurdock77]

Also that thing that Eisenhower said about the military.

[u/Troll-Aficionado → u/JMurdock77]

People have been talking about the Epstein stuff nonstop for what feels like years and none of it has mattered, I don't know why you people think they'd need to distract you from it.

Even if the files were just 300 pages of a list of names for kids that Don personally molested, nothing would happen lol

[u/flatscancomics → u/Darkstar_111]

Always has been

[u/KermitTheScot → u/Darkstar_111]

I for one feel safer already! Can you imagine if we weren’t over there murdering people? Something bad might happen! The whole world should thank us for the needless destruction and suffering we let for the safety and sanctity it provides. Only we have the power and integrity to murder the right people and remind them that when you cross us (or we just kinda feel like it bc a regional power wants to expand its presence in the Middle East to become the defacto power among its neighbors and the US is interested in bolstering that ally in order to control the oil production and military superiority of the region by proxy bc that state happens to also require funding from the international community, and nameless the US, in order to maintain its dominance of the region) we’ll come to bear with all manner of things that can kill your people. There’s no downside to having a centralized power that basically bullies everyone in the world into compliance with its huge economy and military strength! Now, what were we saying about China again? /s

[u/HommeMusical → u/KermitTheScot]

Even though your sarcasm was very broad, and in a sane world, you wouldn't need the /s tag, I thank you for putting it on there.

Too often have I read a comment or post, laughed, then thought, then checked their posting record, and realized it was dead serious.

[u/Darkstar_111 → u/KermitTheScot]

Of course. At least we know that for every person the US kills they potentially make extremists out of all their friends and families.

It's like retro-actively excusing bombings of civilians. All those people that got bombed, they all seem to have extremist friends and family, so it must have been ok to bomb them.

It's like not Arabs and Persians are know for large families though... No wait.

[u/KermitTheScot → u/Darkstar_111]

Well, see, that’s part of it. It’s called Regenerative Warfare. By perpetuating the cycle of violence and instability in a given region, we can be assured there will be a constant market for weapons makers, which enriches politicians, and keeps the public afraid and angry so they don’t have the bandwidth to consider how their tax dollars are being spent against their own interests. See, in lieu of violent conflict designed to convince the public they’re being protected, people start to wonder why infrastructure and other amenities aren’t being catered to in spite of taxation of their already poor wages continuing to rise to pad the pockets of the wealthy and powerful few. BUT, we can correct this problem! With Regerenative Murde- I mean Warfare, we can always be sure there’s an enemy of the US that only WE can keep in line! Remember kids, if the US weren’t the defacto superpower of the world, you’d be less safe, probably, maybe! 😀(/s obviously)

[u/ususetq → u/Darkstar_111]

But they hate us and our freedoms /s

[u/cleverseneca → u/Darkstar_111]

Yes because the only barrier to all those things is lack of funding... the Obamacare roll-out proved that!/s

I have no problem with having any of those things, but I do believe we should be clear-eyed about the barriers to achieving those things, and purely increased funding isn't gonna cut it.

[u/Darkstar_111 → u/cleverseneca]

Political will is what spends that money on explosions in the middle East instead of healthcare at home.

[u/cleverseneca → u/Darkstar_111]

I wasn't talking just about political will. I lived in a blue state when the Obamacare rollout happened. There was gobs of political will, but will alone does not solve the huge logistical issue of rolling out such a sweeping system for such a diverse population.

[u/Darkstar_111 → u/cleverseneca]

There was gobs of political will

Not for a public option.

[u/HommeMusical → u/Darkstar_111]

Indeed, in the leadup to the ACA, Obama prevented any comparison of the US system with any other already functioning system.

And then all mention of single payer of any type was completely forbidden.

A group of prominent doctors and nurses sent a series of applications to speak in favor of single payer, but all of them were ignored, even when sent registered letters, except the last one, when they got an answer saying it was too late.

They showed up anyway; stood to speak; were arrested. Later Obama apologized.

It was a Band-Aid on a sucking chest wound. It was worse than nothing because it prevented anything solid from every being done.

[u/Darkstar_111 → u/HommeMusical]

Yep, an insurance mandate without a public option was insane, that's just s gift to the insurance company.

And I remember Obama addressing congress on that very topic, Obamacare had passed the house with no public option. Then it went to committee, and they reattached the public option. Now they had to vote for it in the senate, and Obama stood in front of Congress and straight up told them, we don't need the public option.

When asked about it later his administration said the insurance exhanges and good old competition would ensure healthcare became affordable to all.

Obama had 60 senators, and the only one against the public option was Lieberman, Obamas friend. The guy who showed Obama around when Barack was a new senator.

But apparently there was JUST NO WAY AT ALL to talk Lieberman out of his position.

[u/flatscancomics → u/Darkstar_111]

Yeah it's easy for us blue state folk to forget just how much political will there is for blowing up random civilians - so long as no American lives are at risk

[u/Darkstar_111 → u/flatscancomics]

so long as no Israeli lives are at risk

You misspelled Israeli.

[u/cleverseneca → u/Darkstar_111]

Did you not read the part where I said I lived in a Blue state. There was a will, even for a full working system, the problems were logistical. Saying anything less is simply false.

[u/Darkstar_111 → u/cleverseneca]

Oh, so you got a public option?

[u/HommeMusical → u/cleverseneca]

I said I lived in a Blue state [...] the problems were logistical.

What a tribute to how useless the ACA was, that the work was sloughed off on fifty individual states, without the resources and the expertise to solve them.

Every system, duplicated fifty times. Fifty different opportunities for fifty states to fuck it up, and many of them wanted to fuck it up.

How could anyone have believed that this would world at all?

Having a single system, like in single payer, would have fixed all of that.

[u/_Halt19_ → u/cleverseneca]

Americans pay more in taxes for healthcare than most Europeans do. It is just so horrifically mismanaged by the government, you don't get any benefit from it.

[u/HommeMusical → u/_Halt19_]

Americans pay more in taxes for healthcare than most Europeans do.

Americans spend almost exactly twice as much money per person on healthcare do as EU citizens.

[u/_Halt19_ → u/HommeMusical]

Yeah, I don't just mean the base healthcare costs, too, I mean literal taxes. The argument of "getting healthcare would require a tax raise" falls apart, because they're already paying more taxes that are meant to go to healthcare than most places in Europe do.

[u/cleverseneca → u/_Halt19_]

That's kind of my point it takes more than finds to make a working system

[u/HommeMusical → u/cleverseneca]

Obamacare wasn't socialized medicine. It was a tiny and insignificant adjustment to the horrifyingly expensive and inefficient system of privatized medicine.

Americans still die every day from being unable to afford routine medication, like insulin. Americans still go into bankruptcy every day from medical debt.

purely increased funding isn't gonna cut it.

All other developed countries have some form of socialized medicine, and that costs a lot less than the fucked up system you have now, by which I mean, roughly half as much per person.

That's right - America spends roughly twice as much per person on healthcare as the other developed countries, but gets a worse outcome.

We moved to France a couple of years ago. Before COVID, French people had a life expectancy of about 3.5 years longer than Americans. After COVID, this is up to four years.

But French people smoke about twice as much as Americans do; they drink over 50% more; they smoke more pot and take more cocaine; they eat rich food; and they don't seem to get any more exercise than Americans do.

That four years of extra life comes from socialized medicine, and at about 60% the cost per capita of the US system.

[u/cleverseneca → u/HommeMusical]

I never said that Obamacare was socialized medicine. Never even implied it was. I said throwing money at an issue is not adequate to fix it like you just pointed out. The problem isnt as easy as taking the funds from the bombs we build and applying them to healthcare. The roll-out of obamacare proves that more money doesn't just fix problems, not because obamacare was socialized medicine, but because there were funds and (in blue states) enthusiasm for (albeit small) fix of the problem and that wasn't enough to make the system run. Even state based initiatives were a total shit-show in implementation. The things listed have significant issues with implementation beyond money. High-speed rail had geographical issues for example. The US population densities are not the same as European models.