Presidential 2020 Kamala Harris Town Hall Was Most Watched...

What gets me PJ is that conservatives have such a low opinion of this country. Every other first world country has figured out a way to make sure its citizens have some form of universal healthcare. Conservatives look at health care throw their hands up and say, "Golly, it is just too hard for us dumb old Americans to figure out."  Do conservatives tell their kids, "Honey, don't worry if you can't figure out Algebra. It is just too hard for the likes of you. Who wants to be like them fancy pants Europeeans with their complex math anyway? I'll call your principal on Mondy and have you moved to the basic ciphering class." 

Hell, Tom even wants to rewrite the Bible now. 

Industrialized nations ranked across a wide array of healthcare metrics

 Not only are socialized systems cheaper but they get better outcomes.    But to be fair, the research ignored Venezuela as a comparable, industrialized nation as Sweden and Japan.     

The US medical system is burdened by the way we live.  We have high rates of drugs & alcohol use, lack of exercise, bad eating habits, a habit of shooting ourselves & automobile death rates.  The American standard for for infant mortality deaths is higher than any other country.

No matter what medical system we use, it will not change anything unless we change how we live.

Still no explanation on how to pay VA care for all except the usual mantra of "tax the rich" or how to pay for the current medicare deficit.  Remember we were promised lower insurance rates under obamacare, which didn't happen.

"Everytime a Republican wants to have a strawman argument about socialism they run to the authoritarian state Venezuela"

Remember when liberals were declaring Venezuela a utopia?  Now they are running away from it as fast as possible

Indeed, . . . .

From Venezuela Is the Hip New Socialist Utopia  in 2007 to  The Socialists United Party's Worst Fears Are Coming True In Venezuela in 2019.

DonDiego prefers a country the Constution of which limits the power of The State in deference to the Citizens. 

"DonDiego prefers a country the Constution of which limits the power of The State in deference to the Citizens. "

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Which is why its not very intelligent to compare a banana republic like Venezuela to a modern democracy like those in Western Europe or our neighbors to the north.

Those democracies'  outcomes and costs have been published on this thread for people who prefer statistics over blind ideology and comparisons to third world autocracies.

Still no word on how to pay for the trillions in annual costs or the medicare deficit.  Hows that for sosts & stats?

I've said it many times on this board.....the pay-for's come from the same source thats used to pay for our current system.  But Canada (thats right, a first-world socialist country! )costs half as much per capita.    So do the math on what that saves.   You dont even have  to use dynamic scoring.

And speaking of paying for things, yesterday Democrats put out a bill to make Social Security solvent for the next 75 years and didn't use Paul Ryan's fairy dust to show you how its paid for.

You can agree or not agree with Democrats ideology - but you cant argue against their honesty about how math works.   Certainly not compared to the "Mexico will pay for it" crowd.

The drug and alcohol abuse are largely symptomatic of our very poor (compared to other first-world countries) health care system.  The opioid abuse problem was created by our for-profit pharmaceutical industry. Court documents that were released just a few days ago show that the makers of oxycontin knew it was very addictive when they released it yet they told everyone in the medical community including the doctors they were trying to get to prescribe it, that it had a very low risk for addiction. They even had a plan to cash in on addiction treatment once they got people hooked on their drugs.  This is exhibit A of what is wrong with our healthcare system.  It is designed to create obscene profits for large corporations first and patients are only a  secondary concern.  

Yes, lack of exercise and bad eating contribute to the problem. Those problems stem from the conservative mentality of having few holidays, long work hours, little paid time off, going cheap on school lunches, food stamps, and other nutritional programs.  Treat people right, give them paid time off work, places to exercise, untainted drinking water and access to inexpensive healthy food and overall health will improve to what it is in Western European countries where they already have all of those things. The sad thing is we have made it expensive to eat healthy and inexpensive to eat poorly.  

PJ Stroh writes: . . . " its [sic] not very intelligent to compare a banana republic like Venezuela to a modern democracy like those in Western Europe or our neighbors to the north."

Venezuela was a bit more than a "banana republic" back in the days before the arrival of Hugo Chavez.  Why heckfire, . . . as recently as 2009 Stefania Fernandez, Miss Venezuela, was crowned Miss Universe. 

In 1998 Venezuela was producing 3.5 million barrels of oil per day, and life was improving for its citizen.

Then the self-proclaimed Socialist Hugao Chavez became President, . . . and in 2002 el Presidente replaced 19,000 employees of the State Owned oil company with employees loyal to himself.*  Why ?  Umm, because he could !  These employees demonstrated no expertise in the oil business.

In 2007 el Presidente expropriated the in-country assetts of Exxon Mobil and Conoco Phillips, . . . a socialist-sort-of-thing-to-do.

Since then oil production has fallen to less than 1.5 million barrels per day.  Even today Venezuela still has the largest proved oil reserves in the world !   But a Socialist can screw up anything.

* Replacing employees with those loyal to the Head of State is something the United States cannot do because i. the US oil companies are share-holder-owned corporations not Government entities and ii. the Constitution limits the power of The State in deference to the Citizens.   This is why poor old DonDiego stated above that he prefers the protection of a thoughtful Constitution over that of a Socialist President.  qed

Ref:

How Venezuela went from the richest economy in South America to the brink of financial ruin 

Charting the Decline of Venezuela's Oil Industry