Why does America have SO much money to hand out to other countries, but don't have enough money for universal

Question

health care?

Scorpian - you just described HMOs.

Answer 1

In response to the other poster: The majority do want it. Anyone who's ever gone without insurance wants it. Anyone who HAS insurance but has been insufficiently covered or denied a claim wants it. It's not just the lazy or the riffraff of society that make up the uninsured or under-insured, it's people just like you and me. Maybe you're lucky enough to have a nice job that gives you excellent benefits - more power to you. But it is my sincere hope that nothing ever befalls you or your family that would paint you as a "liability" in the eyes of the insurance companies.

Answer 2

Health care is very very expensive. And considering who pays all the taxes in this country, the top 25% of us pay 85% of the taxes, why would they want universal health care? The top 1% pay nealy 40%. I'm pretty sure these people are all happy with the US health care system.
If we went to universal coverage the poor would end up with about the same treatment, the middle class much worse, and the wealthy about the same through secondary independent insurance.
Ask a canadian how long it takes to see a medical specialist.

Answer 3

Because your talking about thwo entirely different sums of money.

The US foreign aid budget is around 20 billion a year.

Universial health care, would cost around 1 trillion a year, or 1,000 billion dollars every single year.

Since the US only had tax revenue from personal income and corporate income tax;s of 1.4 trillion last year.

You can see, that spending 1 trillion on universial health care,

Would require a huge increase in federal tax revenue.

So far, no one has been able to come up with a way, to raise enough revenue, to fund universial health care.


We get people who say things like, well we spend 20 billion on this, so why not universial care, except they don't mention where the other 980 billion dollars each year will come from.

Answer 4

Throwing money at the problem isn't the answer. When you guarantee health care, people abuse the privilege and cause the quality of care to decline while costs skyrocket. What we should be doing is decreasing the cost of health care. Create a government program that produces generic versions of important medicines so that pharmaceutical companies won't have a death grip on our wallets. Find ways to lower the number of medical malpractice lawsuits. Stop giving away so much money to insurance companies. In a perfect world we wouldn't HAVE such a thing as insurance, we'd be able to pay for medical treatment ourselves.

Answer 5

We give very little money to other countries except through the defense department to further our national interest. Our direct aid is only 3% of the amount we spend on the military. This would not even make a dent in the cost of universal health care. The US spends 14% of GDP on health care and 3 or 4% on the military and about one tenth of one percent on foreign aid.

Answer 6

Ask any veteran who is serviced by the VA. They will tell you how well universal (read socialized) health care works. The facilities are understaffed, overworked, and care is substandard. This is what occurs when you have a government bureaucracy running things. Maximum cost for minimum results. Its funny how liberals tout the socialized medicine in countries whose leadership comes to the united states for any major medical treatment. you want to fix the health care system? Try tort reform so people cant sue a doctor for multi millions because their eyebrow didn't grow back exactly like they wanted it post surgery. Send the Illegals home who receive treatment as indigents at our hospitals and whose treatment costs are subsequently passed on to the rest of us. Then people would have access to more affordable health insurance. By the way, it is the responsibility of the individual to provide their own health care, not the governments. People need to assume more individual responsibility and quit depending on the government to do everything for them.

Answer 7

Personally I think it is due to a twisted sense of priorities and public relations.

Anytime there is a flood, drought, famine , tsunami, etc.... the United States has to be there with its wallet open and its military providing transport.
Each year we spend BILLIONS in foreign aid and if anything happens around the world we must step up and give more . It is easy to say we should take care of our own citizens but when crisis strikes our money has got to go............. if not the media, the UN and the world rise against us as being cheap and uncaring.

Answer 8

Piegows is right, When Government becomes your Healthcare provider, then government can tell your doctor what kind of medical care you can have and Government decides if your Premie baby lives or dies. Doctors would have to get Government approval for anything he/she does for you. All doctors would basically be government employees and no more Private Practices. Government could and probably would control everything you do ,eat or drink, because the Government would be footing the bill for your HealthCare.

Answer 9

OMG drop the universal healthcare crap....

it's not as great as it seems. Here's an idea... if you can't afford health insurance, get rid of your computer and internet access.. that should free up some money.

ask people who have universal healthcare, they will tell you it's crap.

Answer 10

The majority doesn't want universal health care! That's why.