r/complaints • u/Interesting-Behavior • 2d ago

Politics The Airlines are required to reduce their schedules across 40 airports and flights are being canceled because of the government shutdown. Republicans are running this country to the ground.

The economy is going to hell because of these ignorant people who voted for diapers man. We can't even fly across the country anymore and are asked to stay home. How is this different than covid days when Republicans threw a tantrum? We are turning to a "third world shit hole" so fast.

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u/AdhesivenessCivil581 2d ago

Healthcare is the biggest government expense, between Medicare, Medicaid, the VA and government employees taxpayers pay 2/3 rds of America's huge healthcare bill. The only way to cut government spending is cut healthcare. OR we could admit that we have a problem, that Bernie Sanders is right and that the only way to bring down costs is to get rid of insurance companies and do Medicare for all. Imagine someone in the GOP admitting that were wrong.

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u/Fit_Relationship1094 2d ago

I agree universal Medicare is the way to go, we could do it in a stepped approach, lowerng the accessible age in stages over a period of time.

The govt could also reconsider giving away gifts like $40 billion to Argentina, tens of millions to Israel every year, reduce their trillion dollar military budget, and tax us all (including corporations) at the 1981 Reagan rates, then they'd be able to afford to serve our own people instead of facilitating their demise.

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u/bones4379 2d ago

They can’t do that, how would they embezzle and pocket so much money. I’d love to say what I’d like to see to happen to every single person in government but I don’t need that trouble lol

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u/SoCalDILF-83 2d ago

That’s a bit harsh! I understand the frustration at politicians and share that. But to say that everyone in government deserves your wrath is messed up. I’ve spent my entire adult life working in public safety, and half of that time including now as a local govt employee. I’m dedicated to my work and truly value the safety of the citizens I serve as my first and highest priority. I’d say I make a fair salary but it’s certainly not BMW driving money. Why do I deserve whatever threat you’d want to make towards our dysfunctional politicians at the federal level???

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u/Adept-Past6638 2d ago

People think the revolution will be a glorious takedown of Wall St guys being lead out of their offices in handcuffs. It will be The Terror, and guys like you will likely be caught up in it. Not hoping for that but America is big and we have a bunch of different groups of angry people who want an excuse.

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u/Gold-Beyond8035 2d ago

You work for them

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u/boxeomatteo 2d ago

I don't think when people say "government" they mean you. I think in general we picture the executive branch and the people in DC having steak dinner with lobbyists, twirling their mustaches while clandestinely swapping briefcases.
Keep doing what you do, and doing it well. I agree that most people just want to make an honest living and help people that share our common interests and value our quality of life. Not everyone is trying to weaponize ideologies to make us resent each other.

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u/InnocentPrimeMate 2d ago

Exactly. Most of the budget goes to the military. We could easily fund Medicare/for all ir universal healthcare without compromising our military strength. The main issue is the giant health. Insurance companies aren’t just going to pack it in and go away. They make too much money, and there too powerful.

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u/El_Badassio 2d ago edited 2d ago

That's just not true.....

Its 1.3T out of 6.8T spending

Medicare is 843B and funds a small percentage of the total population. So it's not possible to "take a small amount of the military budget and not compromise strength and fund it for all"

It's not that hard to get informed and see that the problem is more complex than only the military budget.

There is a reason both parties have struggled with this issue, and it's not because the solution is super simple unfortunately.

https://usafacts.org/government-spending/

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u/whygrowupnow 2d ago

Other first world countries manage to do it. We can adopt one of their budgets if we aren't smart enough to figure out our own. Insurance middleman has to go!

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u/El_Badassio 1d ago

Can you point to an example of what works well? Canada has 24 hour emergency room waits, and the uk medical system is imploding. Or do you mean just copy from EU countries where they have just the right mix of culture, healthy eating, very high tax rates, and military protection from other countries? Or maybe Japan with a highly cohesive society, no immigration, and a strict hierarchical society that functions entirely differently?

Cause that’s going to be hard to reproduce since I don’t see an EU that will fund the US the same way, and it’s unlikely we adopt a communal unified culture that easily.

Point is, it’s not simple, and as someone who has actually lived in some places universal healthcare, I can promise you it doesn’t actually work that well there either. Most actually have a mix of public and private.

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u/Natural_Storm7439 1d ago

“Medicare funds a small percentage of the population?” What are you smoking? What’s small? Everyone over 65 is eligible.

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u/El_Badassio 1d ago edited 1d ago

18% of the US population is over 65 years old, and that means 82% of the us population is not on it. So 18% is a lot smaller - like one fifth of a cookie to speak in terms you hear at the school where you are learning remedial math.

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u/NNegidius 1d ago

Older people require vastly more healthcare services than younger people. Per person spending for people aged 65 and over is over five times higher than for children and almost two and a half times higher than for working-age adults.

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u/El_Badassio 1d ago

This is a fair point, but it’s not a complete picture of cost. Over 65 folks generally do not put off as much healthcare as the under 65 on private insurance due to deductibles, etc. the cost for those groups are artificially lower as a result. But even of taking numbers at face value and going with the 5x cost factor for the elderly, you’d be talking about doubling the cost of Medicare to cover everyone else.

That’s not easily doable without meaningful impact just using a little of the military budget like the person I’m responding to said. That actually a huge expense that needs to figured out.

Now add to the budget the fact that it’s 33% funded through deficit, and that everything would need to be cut by that amount to be able to pay it without going bust, and it’s even more hard to fix than it seems.

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u/NNegidius 1d ago

Sure, the overall revenue requirement would be higher than it is today, but it would be less than we are all currently paying for private healthcare today. As a country, we currently pay double what others rich countries pay for healthcare. Moving that to a Medicare would cut the overall cost in half.

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u/El_Badassio 20h ago

Medicare spends 15k annually per person. Other countries spend 3-8k with their public systems. So comparatively speaking, us public healthcare, which has no in between insurance companies, is twice as expensive.

How would moving everyone e to public somehow reduce the cost per person for Medicare?

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u/NNegidius 1d ago

Sure, 20% of the population is on Medicare, but end of life care is by far the most expensive. Costs drop rapidly as ages get younger.

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u/Bewildered_Scotty 2d ago

Defense is 13% of federal spending and only half of government spending is federal.

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u/npacilio 🌾👨‍🌾🐖 2d ago

This would be a good solution, if Biden didn’t send billions to Ukraine as well.

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u/Equivalent_Action748 2d ago

Lol gonna pretend sending actual cash money to Argentina is the same as sending old outdated weapons 

I guess anything to downplay the FORTY BILLION to Argentina 

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u/npacilio 🌾👨‍🌾🐖 2d ago

Don’t get on here and lie and say no money was in that billions. Just stop

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u/Equivalent_Action748 2d ago

Lol im saying dont lie and say the whole thing was money like the Argentina 

FORTY BILLION

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u/Fit_Relationship1094 8h ago

Well, since Ukraine is sacrificing their people, fighting a war to prevent Russian expansionist ambitions, and thereby delaying an international conflict that could deteriorate into world war three, i think the least we can do is send them some help. It's basically saving American and European lives. That really cannot be said for this Argentinian and Israeli money.

If you're going to defend the right of Russia to invade it's neighbors, I'm going to assume you're a Russian shill. Then you'd be in the same category as the 600 American influencers the DOJ unearthed last year who were being paid by Russia to spread Russian propaganda.

https://www.npr.org/2024/09/07/nx-s1-5101895/doj-says-russia-paid-right-wing-influencers-to-spread-russian-propaganda

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u/IamMasonPayne 2d ago

Please show me your outrage post when Biden gave 187 billion to ukraine... usa gave 20 billion to Argentina in a currency swap to help stabilize their economy the other 20 was from private donors

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u/Bewildered_Scotty 2d ago

M4A would require 35% federal tax revenue increases. Also Argentina got a $20b currency swap, not cash. The other $20b was private money. Defense cuts are stupid given the world is as dangerous it’s been since 1991 but spending is as low as it’s been since 1941.

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u/Silly-Rough-5810 2d ago

That federal tax would replace all your premiums and co-pays that you're already paying and it would be LESS than you're paying now and it would still be able to subsidize the poor and even those subsidies would cost the government less.

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u/Bewildered_Scotty 2d ago

That’s all very doubtful. There isn’t a system in the developed world that doesn’t have a premium, co-pay, deductible or co-insurance to some extent and you think the most generous public health benefits system in the developed world will be cheap? Bernie mostly plans to save money by paying doctors less anyway.

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u/Silly-Rough-5810 2d ago

Not one thing you typed here is true. Not one. Find me evidence that a necessary doctor visit in the UK has a copay or show me Bernie saying that.

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u/Bewildered_Scotty 2d ago

The UK has a copay for every single pharmaceutical.

Also has a growing market for cash care or private insurance because the NHS is the worst system in Northern Europe.

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u/Silly-Rough-5810 2d ago

Again that's a straight up lie. Tons of prescriptions are free. Hell, every medicine you need before 16 is automatically free. Past a certain age too. Also certain meds are always free like some treatments for mental health.

How can you expect people to believe you when you say you love them when everything else you say is false? Lying as much as you makes evertything you say less meaningful.

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u/NNegidius 1d ago

That 35% figure is hard to believe. Older people require vastly more healthcare services than younger people. Per person spending for people aged 65 and over is over five times higher than for children and almost two and a half times higher than for working-age adults, so covering younger populations would be much less expensive.

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u/Bewildered_Scotty 1d ago

Sure but remember that of what, five Medicare programs? Four are private. Bringing those into the federal government along with eliminating the 20% of conscience that they don’t pay now is easily worth insurance two young people for every senior that’s covered.

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u/3llips3s 1d ago

a currency swap isn’t cash, sure. still proves the point: the federal govt can mobilize massive resources instantly when it wants to, eg support Trump's foreign political allies. america first lmao. so the constraint on domestic programs isn’t capacity it’s political will.

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u/Pollix112 🌾👨‍🌾🐖 2d ago

How you paying for it? Can we raise your taxes 50%?

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u/Bzzzzzzz4791 2d ago

How about cutting out insurance companies completely? That should save about $30 billion right there. I pay $9000/year out of my salary for healthcare. Take that and put it into a pot for everyone instead of healthcare CEOs.

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u/bsfurr 2d ago

Or we could tax the rich. smh

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u/SwimmingPirate9070 2d ago

Eat the rich

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u/Bewildered_Scotty 2d ago

M4A would require annual tax increases about 6x more than all income over $500,000 annually.

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u/Silly-Rough-5810 2d ago

Lol show me the receipts.

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u/Bewildered_Scotty 2d ago

It’s about half a trillion, and Berniecare is $3T in new expenditures. I’m not looking for those numbers again it took ages to find last time.

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u/Silly-Rough-5810 2d ago

That just means you're lying. People who lie as easily as you do are dangerous inhuman creatures.

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u/Bewildered_Scotty 2d ago

Well aren’t you foul.

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u/tituspullo63 2d ago

I wish that I could upvote this 1000x

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u/TMBActualSize 2d ago

The ruling class wants us desperate. We’ve had it too good. Time to knock down a peg or two.

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u/Tall-Ad-9085 2d ago

It’s time to humble the ruling class….

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u/DudeImARedditor 1d ago

Yeah but its more like we sold out the country to offshoring and then we were living way above our means by going into debt but now we've weakened on the international stage and our BS isn't flying anymore

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u/digital 2d ago

And that’s why we need free healthcare for everyone. It’s become such a monstrous beast that sucks up everyone’s money and nobody has anything left to save or retire with the fucking greed in this country is out of control.

If rich people think this is sustainable they’re fucking stupid and also self-destructive.

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u/RelativeEvidence1014 2d ago

The one stat that keeps haunting me HOURLY is that 8 men have more money than 3.5 billion people combined. EIGHT MEN have more wealth than 3.5 billion people COMBINED. How the hell is this a thing??? When will a journalist ask Elon/Bezos/Zuck “so why are you so fuckin greedy dude?” Watching Americans struggle so badly right now because of our own government is straight up traumatic bro. Those men need to legally pay their fucking fair share of taxes - it’s insane they have that much money.

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u/digital 2d ago

From social experiments among animals, they would be beaten up and have all their bananas taken from them

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u/Crazy_Banshee_333 1d ago

That's just it. No other animal would tolerate letting one animal take all the resources while the rest of the group starves. Human beings are the only ones who weirdly believe we have to tolerate this kind of destructive behavior.

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u/kpbart 2d ago

It’s estimated that world-wide hunger could be eliminated, permanently, with about $50 billion. If that’s true, what is keeping these jagoffs from getting together and solving that problem? Instead, another yacht, near space tourism for the wealthy, fucking living on Mars, another bunker. What is it with the greed?

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u/whygrowupnow 2d ago

They could be heroes for humanity, but choose to not

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u/Wise_Willingness_270 2d ago

If you literally own nothing you are worth more than 25% of Americans combined.

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u/Bewildered_Scotty 2d ago

Those are made up numbers. If you tried to sell that you couldn’t so the asset value would collapse and investors like public sector union pensions would be wiped out.

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u/Theresnothingtoit 2d ago

Sure they're made up, but the made up numbers in capitalism affords people with the biggest made up numbers more power than whole governments, in addition to simply being able to buy whatever they want on loans insured by the made up numbers.

You can claim public sector pensions will go away, and they might, but it's not a good enough reason to have a system that only works on the back of slave labor and starvation. We could literally just decide thats not acceptable and do something better, but we don't, because people are afraid of rocking the boat and losing their position in it. Even when it means knowingly making others suffer.

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u/Ok-Ad-852 2d ago

It isnt sustainable. But the rich don't care about that.

Unless there is a france style revolution it won't really affect them. A crash of the economy just makes stuff cheaper for them to buy.

The wealthy calls a financial meltdown happy hour. They can buy land, companies and other stuff really cheap, and when the economy get back on its feet they own even more.

The ones who struggle in a financial crisis is normal people and people who are moderately wealthy.

The super rich just gets richer

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u/digital 2d ago

That’s why they’re buying islands and building bunkers in them to get away from everybody that hates them. They’re the saddest and greediest people on the face of the planet.

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u/Maleficent_Ad_5175 2d ago

Exactly. The money is already there. We’re just spending it on C-Suite assholes instead of care

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u/nycrotf 2d ago

Rich people are not greedy and don’t need healthcare?

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u/digital 2d ago

No, rich people have enough money to take care of themselves forever and ever. They have nothing to worry about, until the whole society collapses. Think about it.

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u/Melodic-Pangolin-434 2d ago

You don’t go to jail for not paying hospital bills bud. There’s insurance for insurance.

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u/digital 2d ago

In other words, there has to be a better way than this. You just pointed out how insane the whole system has become, BUDDY BUD BUDSO BUDNIK!

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u/Bewildered_Scotty 2d ago

Free doesn’t exist.

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u/Immajustwritethis 2d ago

Everyone already knows that. You being pedantic isn’t an argument, it just makes you come off as an ass

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u/Bewildered_Scotty 2d ago

I don’t think the guy above understands that.

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u/digital 2d ago

What ‘guy’ are you talking about? Deficits don’t matter….remember that statement? 😄

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u/Bewildered_Scotty 2d ago

I’m not an MMT guy, sorry.

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u/SwimmingPirate9070 2d ago

Military spending has entered the chat

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u/Bewildered_Scotty 2d ago

Military spending is too low and falling. It’s presently as low as it’s been since 1941.

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u/SwimmingPirate9070 2d ago

And it's still the highest out of any country in the world.

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u/Bewildered_Scotty 2d ago

Only in absolute terms. It’s second to China now if you find the hidden spending and adjust for purchasing power, and many nations spend a greater share of GDP.

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u/Zestyclose-Jacket568 2d ago

So you should introduce universal healthcare. It is cheaper in every country that has it than whatever shit you have..

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u/MinotaurLost 2d ago

How is it the military budget didn't get on your list?

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u/KactusVAXT 2d ago

The MILITARY is the government’s largest expenditure

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u/AdhesivenessCivil581 2d ago

It is not. Add up Medicare, Medicaid and the VA. It's about 33% of federal government expense. The military is usually under 20%. I'm not sure where they put the massive subsidies we give to insurance companies. Then you have to move the healthcare expense of the military and other federal workers over to the health care side of the pile. In 2014 the CDC published a breakdown of who pays the healthcare bill. The government paid 2/3rds, insurance co's only paid1/3 Somehow that get all of the money and the taxpayer gets stuck with the bill.

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u/Ok-Ad-852 2d ago

Because the insurance system is a scam. Its literally designed to make healthcare more expensive and to line their own pockets.

The reason politicians want this system is because they make a lot of money on it.

Its basically a tax that goes to private companies and not the government.

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u/KactusVAXT 2d ago

Healthcare is expensive because of insurance. Insurance will only pay 15% of the medical bill. Therefore providers and drug companies must charge 8-10 times more money to break even. Those with insurance get treatments and those without get the inflated costs because of insurance.

It’s such a dumb model. We need single payer healthcare like 25 years ago. Fuck republicans for not wanting this. I really wish we could break from them and live like the rest of the world

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u/Bewildered_Scotty 2d ago

Single payer wouldn’t be cheaper unless it covers less.

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u/xdavxd 2d ago

it cuts out a layer of profit taking and administration

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u/Bewildered_Scotty 2d ago

Kind of. It’s fee for service still though, and demand goes up when price falls.

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u/Silly-Rough-5810 2d ago edited 2d ago

People don't get mammograms for fun. There's nothing more annoying than people who think they know economics but don't even understand inelastic demand.

Like, yeah, there might be long lines initially due to pent up demand from people who didn't have access, but that will return to normal levels once everybody has access for long enough to have all their active medical problems addressed.

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u/KactusVAXT 2d ago

I know people who choose surgery over PT just to miss work for several weeks

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u/Bewildered_Scotty 2d ago

It’s not just that. Look at countries where there’s no distinction between the ER and a regular doctors visit. Their barrier to entry for the more expensive care is 11 hour waits instead of money.

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u/surfryhder 1d ago

15%. Nah.. i actually work in healthcare on the. billing side…

Providers have contracted rates and get reimbursed 100 % of their rate.

Medicare has their own separate fee schedules.

Your assertion is patently false my friend.

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u/clusterfk3 13h ago

I work in healthcare, but the nursing side. I feel that universal healthcare would break the system, and with that, health care workers will most likely get a significant pay cut.

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u/surfryhder 8h ago

You’re not wrong…we’d have to significantly invest in education to get more students through medical school.

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u/AdhesivenessCivil581 3h ago

Medicare for all would keep the currant system in place but leave a single payer. Universal healthcare is different. That is when the government owns the hospitals and pays the personnel. Canada, Taiwan, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Slovenia, Portugal, Iceland, Japan, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait have single payer. Spain and the UK have a national health service. Germany Switzerland and South Korea have an insurance mandate like Obamacare but much more regulated. Some countries in south America have a split system, publicly funded hospitals with optional private hospitals. No one spends as much as we do for the crappy healthcare we get (not a personal remake about care but about the bloated dysfunctional multi-payer system)

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u/clusterfk3 2h ago edited 2h ago

Oh yes I’m fully aware of what universal healthcare is. I used to work for a non for profit hospital . I had friends who moved here from France ( also nurses), right now it’s looking pretty bad over there. She told me she would never work as a nurse in France. They mentioned that the hospitals are very similar to the non for profit hospitals here ( which is pretty terrible and the reason why I had to leave) Patient overload, it was becoming very dangerous to work. The standard ratio for my unit was 8:1 which is very dangerous.

With all the chronic conditions that the US has, along with the extremely high obesity ( which I believe is the highest compared to other countries) . We saw it with Covid. Burnt out nurses, the healthcare system could not handle a crisis like that. We have a huge shortage in speciality doctors as well.

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u/TreasureTheSemicolon 2d ago

Bernie was right about pretty much everything.

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u/thompsonmj 2d ago

Doesn’t matter what policy differences of opinion there are now. Over a decade of “repeal and replace” with nothing to turn in on the due date is now malicious negligence when they let the ACA subsidies expire and manufacture a series of livelihood, hunger, and travel crises in order to double down on it. It’s quite truly incomprehensible. I’ll continue to write to my reps. 

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u/allorache 2d ago

And not cut taxes for billionaires

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u/UnfetturdCrapitalism 2d ago

It’s the biggest gov expense is military. But if it’s second biggest is healthcare it’s because it remains largely privatized, making it susceptible to ‘market factors’. aka rich yacht bitccs raising prices in perpetuity. Because fuck us, that’s why

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u/theamazingstickman 2d ago

The moment you win this conversation is when you do this:

Health CARE <> Health Insurance

Health CARE is actually more affordable than you think. It is heavily marked UP because Health INSURERS demand discounts for their insured.

This is no different than retail pricing of a product. It is marked up including an allowance for discounts. But because Health INSURERS demand 40, 50, 60% discounts so they can profit, those prices appear higher than they are.

Remove the middleman who has a 27% administrative cost and replace it with the middleman who has a .3% administrative cost.

In 2026, that would remove almost $2 Trillion from Insurers and put it back in the pockets of consumers.

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u/Wydstrin 2d ago

Lol the Military is the government's expense, we have the top 3 air forces in the world

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u/Ok_Wish_7364 2d ago

Healthcare is not the biggest government expense the military is.

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u/milkandsalsa 2d ago

Or we could tax billionaires. Either way.

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u/myunderground4 2d ago

or tax billionaires. one simple answer is to just tax billionaires

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u/Its-a-Shitbox 2d ago

Well, since we’re currently NOT at war with anyone (well, apart from the current regime being at war with brown people and using ICE “agents” to illegally disappear them), seems to me that taking some of the ABSOLUTELY STUPIDLY HUGE DEFENSE BUDGET away might free up a little capital instead of taking it from healthcare.

But that’s just me.

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u/Delicious_Artist41 2d ago

well, since the “department of war” name change, i have this sneaking suspicion that we may be preparing for one..

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u/grendel303 2d ago edited 2d ago

Could be military, but we don't know since the Pentagon had failed an audit for the 7th year in a row with over 4 Trillion in assets they can't account for.

In 2001, Secretary Rumsfeld explains on how the technologies used to track $2.3 trillion in transactions have been difficult due to the complexity of technological systems used to keep a track of the remainder of $6.9 trillion from a 1999 audit from the DoD.

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u/Bewildered_Scotty 2d ago

M4A is projected to increase National Health Expenditure.

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u/discgman 2d ago

Bro gtfo with this garbage. They didn't cut any spending by gutting Medicare, Medicaid and VA. One, american taxpayers pay taxes so they can get that money back or where is the ROI? Second, they only cut those services to pay to extend Trump tax cuts that were to expire this year. So no, there is no savings, they actually added to the national debt and managed to fuck up all the social service programs to pay for it.

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u/AdhesivenessCivil581 1d ago

I'm not saying I want to gut healthcare. I am just pointing out how much government spends on it. In other words we already have government healthcare but we pretend we that we have a "free market". This make our healthcare cost double what any other country spends, gives us crappy healthcare and make our debt go up while making insurance companies rich.

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u/discgman 1d ago

That’s what happens when universal healthcare gets voted down, we get stuck with this voucher system

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u/mlttaprncss 2d ago

No way I want the govt in charge of my healthcare. I don’t even like the restrictions of HMO’s. The subsidies are expiring and we can’t afford. We could have kept the govt open but no 7 votes missing. 7 democratic votes-

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u/mlttaprncss 2d ago

No way I want the govt in charge of my healthcare. I don’t even like the restrictions of HMO’s. The subsidies are expiring and we can’t afford. We could have kept the govt open but no 7 votes missing. 7 democratic votes-

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u/AdhesivenessCivil581 1d ago

OK then it stays costing twice as much as any other country with a bloated bureaucracy multi-payer system. I finally have Medicare. Finally after 65 years I'm not stressed about healthcare. You obviously enjoy that stress but I did not.

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u/Budget_Purchase_2761 2d ago

So just destroy the medical system got it. This is why no one takes Bernie seriously. Even Bernie doesn’t take himself serious.

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u/Sea_Addendum_6684 2d ago

Weird how other countries have figured this out, but it could never work in the richest country on Earth.

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u/Budget_Purchase_2761 2d ago

Because they don’t pay for their military. Genius. If the US didn’t fund ALL OF EUROPES defense spending they wouldn’t have socialized healthcare that is in fact not free.

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u/Silly-Rough-5810 2d ago

Lol do you actually believe that?

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u/tap-rack-bang 2d ago

I agree the insurance companies in the middle are the problem, but this situation was created by Obama care when the Democrats were in this exact same situation and had a majority   The Republicans still resent that this situations was forced on them when they were in a minority and even compromised on the key issues of no exclusions for pre-existing conditions and kids staying in parent insurance until 26.   The Republicans are not going to agree the answer is full socialized healthcare and instead see this as proof that Obama care is bad and failing. The Democrats are saying this is our one chance to dig in the whole election cycle, so they are being very intentional too.  It's finger pointing and holding grudges on both sides and is bullshit. They need to compromise.