I-5 wrote:It's ironic that using the term 'social...' attached to any conversation about healthcare is anathema to americans. Most of the world is democratic, and not only is no one outside of the US threatened by that term, but I think non-americans are generally perplexed by the vehemence of americans to even consider the idea that the government can successfully administer health insurance. It's almost as mind-boggling with americans obsession with guns. Those 2 issues will probably never be solved in the US. Who woulda thunk?
It's becoming less anathema. It will happen at some point. It's too advantageous in too many ways. But it's going to be a tough fight as American going socialized medicine will destroy or limit a large number of industries. I am not sure if you invest or study the medical sector much, but huge sums of money are made in America off medicine. Medical stocks and all associated companies will lose huge amounts of money and value if America moves to socialized medicine. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars, jobs, and so much more will be lost if America goes socialist. Not just here, but abroad as well. America fuels the majority of profits for medical corporations from drug makers to device makers to health insurance worldwide. It would change quite a bit.
I learned this little bit investing in foreign medical device and drug maker stocks. Approval in markets other than America have limited upside because nearly every other developed, wealthy nation has socialized medicine which negotiates prices and won't pay the insane fees America will pay for a new device or drug as well as smaller, often healthier populations. Thus the obese, unhealthy, wealthy, willing to pay for a pill over doing work to improve health America makes companies a lot of money.
If you socialize healthcare, you likely destroy the private health insurance industry, increase taxes, and create a non-competitive market for drugs and medical devices which will substantially limit upside profits for medical companies. You also have to implement forced dietary changes and health behaviors or the costs become exorbitant as well as have doctors and medical boards empowered to choose who gets medical care first based on necessity over income. Americans don't like being told they can't get something they're willing and able to pay for. Then you have the unions who aren't for it because the better healthcare they negotiate for union members wouldn't be as valuable.
it's going to be very hard to disentangle our current system with so many forces working against it. It will likely happen. Or maybe some really smart business person comes up with a way to do healthcare better and cheaper than a socialized system. We shall see.
As far as the guns, if you don't trust the government as Americans are raised to not trust their government, why would you give up your guns? I'm hoping folks in other nations never find themselves wanting if a new world war breaks out. If some new tyrant rises they will greatly regret giving up arms while they're on the phone begging America to come and save them. We've literally had to enter wars on behalf of other nations against bigger players for a hundred years now. I hope we're sufficiently economically dependent that these wars are pretty much over. At the same time an economic collapse worldwide could change things and if it should happen, you definitely want to be armed and know how to use your weapons.
I know you're living in Canada. I can guarantee you if America collapses economically, Canadians are completely screwed. American raiding parties will head into Canada and rip it up with far better arms and training than Canadians will be able to resist. Hell, Mexico and Latin America would be screwed too. Even their paramilitary organizations couldn't withstand the sheer amount of firepower possessed by the American citizenry. Americans are better armed than most nations militaries. I don't know that I want to give that up any time soon as it is definitely a deterrent to invasion and put us in a powerful position should things go bad in the world.
I know you're one of those folks that thinks this will never happen, but I can't share your optimism. We've had relative peace now for what? 50 years? Since Vietnam in the 70s? Maybe 30 plus if you include the Cold War. Most of the modern wars have been short, quick wars where America easily crushed their opposition. All it would take is a major economic collapse in China or Russia deciding to expand again to create issues or a major war between India and China where we had to pick sides. I'm still not at the point where giving up arms seems like a good idea. I won't be there in my lifetime. Maybe some future group of humans can feel comfortable doing that where the world is sufficiently peaceful. I don't want to end up like Europe or Canada where we would need to call someone else for help during an invasion because we got no one to call. America only has itself to defend us against an aggressor. The rest of the world, besides perhaps England and hopefully Canada, would provide us no aid. And only England would likely be useful as Canada is too small and militarily weak to stand up to a China or a Russia or a combination of China and Russia.
The world domination game isn't over yet. We gotta stay vigilant to ensure we don't end up screwed by the monster that is China, until their government becomes less of a controlling, oppressive influence.