this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
The idea that the only options are defense spending or universal healthcare is a fallacy. It's a false choice. Common in propaganda.
In reality most (if not all) developed countries spend significantly LESS on healthcare than America. So if anything, having (near) universal healthcare would leave MORE money to spend on war.
In other words, America doesn't need to choose between military spending and universal healthcare. Certainly, you don't need to choose between supporting Ukraine and healthcare. America can choose to support Ukraine, maintain a huge defense budget, have universal (and superior) healthcare, and SAVE money.
The reason you don't have universal healthcare, isn't defense spending.
It's partly corporate greed and corporate influence.
It's partly an ideological choice.
It's partly American voters, voting against their own interests, because they've been lied to. Like you've almost certainly been lied to about healthcare.
Perhaps ask yourself who stood to gain from you thinking this was a binary choice.
Yeah, these are the usual excuses we hear, but I can look just to the north of us and see Canada, with universal health care, spending a mere 26 billion a year.
At the end of the day, enough of us support our own impoverishment, so it's never going to change.
That's the point. If the US could get spend less on healthcare, and get universal healthcare at that lower cost, then what does the amount being spent on the Ukraine war have to do with healthcare?
If we saved money on healthcare then we could send more to Ukraine?
Sounds like a plan.