2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: A Chant just broke out at Ohio State during Bernie's speech [View all]truehawk2
(4 posts)TWICE what any single payer country spends per captia. And we don't actually cover 47,000,000 of our citizens.
Those countries other countries have a much lower cost for medicine, medical education, and I don't know what they do for malpractice insurance, but it is much less of an issue because of the robust safety net.
Also when the income is redistributed to the bottom with every transaction, income tax receipts go up AND deficits go down.
The shibboleth "Redistribution has never worked" is a Calvinist myth. The finances of a country are not the same as a household but Austerity has never has worked within a household when it involves saving money by not investing in future earning capacity. Saving money by not planting the fields, or getting an education is pennywise and pound foolish, and even more so for a country.
Of course, I get you. When one has been a farmer as I have been it is hard to seen those who don't work and appear healthy as customers rather than lazy louts, but the fact is that they are, and social democratic states such as Denmark, Canada and Germany and Sweden (before their immigration troubles) have higher labor participation rates probably they have healthier citizens by far than we do. So given the social support to get an education and work in those countries most natives and assimilated immigrants do.
Also Land Grant Universities with free tuition was Lincoln's idea.