Rivers of ink will flood the libraries trying to explain covid-19 in the U.S.
we? impoverished population, no safety net (low educational attainment levels and very low ratio of physicians per 1000 inhabitants), no government coffers to incentivize stay-at-home calls and, high numbers of workers in the informal economy explain our terrible numbers.
but California? Washington State?
talk about complex issues!!
acket.
Absolute, 100% agreement. Unfortunately, over here, a sizeable part of the population freaks out when you talk about giving people enough money to just not go to work. It was a whole thing here when, for a while, unemployment often paid better than the jobs people had lost, because they just were choosing to stay on it rather than go to work. That's what you *want* when you're trying to stop a pandemic. Give people enough money so they don't have to choose between housing and feeding themselves or going to a dangerous job.Originally Posted by Dicknose
Heh. Solve that by raising minimum wage.
All these issues are so deep and interconnected.
It's obvious and clear that right wing politics and capitalism isn't doing anything to protect anyone.
1) Trump
2) Healthcare for profit
Those are the same people who are like, "Let's buy more $100 million each F-22s so we can $1 million each missile the shit out of some ragheads!"
Who'd have thought, machine guns for everyone doesn't help with education, and health.
Oh wait, everyone.
um, the UK is one of the few countries (Canada and one other) that has truly universal healthcare systems that doesn't involve private insurers. The UK is handling Covid just as shitily as the US.
Trump has done a terrible job with the pandemic, but I don't think Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden would have provided much better results. I place the most blame on Karen's, flat-Earthers, ... the people.
PS; Medicare/Medicaid spending is more than 2x military spending. Social Security is also about 2x military spending.
When you have anti-maskers in charge, of course even universal healthcare won't help. Boris Johnson is almost like Trump, right?
I do agree that there's no guarantee that Hillary/Biden will do much better, what's happening in CA is probably proof of that. However, Trump for sure had made things worse in America.
Lastly, I think you spending figures are a bit off. Based on 2019 #s, Medicare&etc was 25% of total, Social Security was 23% and defense was 16%. Almost 2x defense spending, but not quite!
https://www.cbpp.org/research/federa...tax-dollars-go
FYI, 8% of our budget are interest payments because of our debts. Half of our military spending!
BTW, medicare spending was spent on the most expense group of folks. Seniors with lots of issues..., it probably won't cost us proportionally more to also include the younger healthier folks.
Actually one of the main problems with UK (and Lombardy in Italy) and Covid has been the recent cuts and privatization pushes that Tories has been exacting in brutal ways.
There is more than one other country with a viable public health system, and I'll bet you that not a single one of them hasn't experienced some sort of pressure by its government to reduce costs in favour of increasing reliance on private health care. The NHS is absolutely facing this pressure from the Tories, at the behest of the politicians' Best Big Business Buddies at the local polo club. It is all about driving public funds toward corporate profit, in exchange for jobs-for-the-boys and big political party donations. Essentially a simple money laundering scheme that puts taxes right into party member's pockets.
The UK is doing a bad job with COVID because of the right-wing tendency to cut government spending and allow business to drive policy direction. The NHS funding has not risen in line with population growth and GDP (they even hold charity events, FFS) and I'd bet my last GBP that there is mis-management of funds at various levels of the organisation purely due to a lack of strict oversight. Meanwhile the country HaS tO sTaY oPeN at a time when the borders are closing due to BREXIT otherwise the economy will collapse, although economic strength has not always shown to be an indicator of the welfare of a citizenry (it's more accurately about the welfare of rich people's investment accounts) and it's all just dragging out this problem even longer.
What we are seeing is the apex of societal progression since the 80s in preparation for absolute failure for when a crisis like this strikes, and in that regard it has been a complete success. The people at the top are nicely insulated from loss of income and poor healthcare, mainly because they have large stacks of cash, which was generated by the sweat and blood and workplace fatalities of poor people, vacuumed up by profit and greed, and made possible by a craven political establishment.
*cough*
Good morning, by the way. I hope you're having a nice day.
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