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Comment by kbart | Hacker News Reader

What I don't get about USA mentality is that Americans collectively pay >600B/year to fund military[0], trillions worth of pointless wars[1] via taxes and are happy about that, but when it comes to paying some extra to fund their own and fellow citizens healthcare (which costs nearly twice less than military spending[2]), suddenly it's somehow against free market and "American spirit". Is it a paramount of government brainwashing, lobbying or something else?

0. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/02/how-us-defense-spending-stac...

1. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-usa-funding/u-s-cbo-...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_Stat...

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This attitude is even more stark in the Justice system. It's way cheaper to buy a homeless person a sandwich than to jail them for 5 years after they steal one. (A real situation, per a DA friend of mine, thanks to mandatory minimums and 3 strike laws.) You see the same thing with drugs: we prefer lengthy, expensive jail sentences to lengthy, expensive treatment.

Why are people more willing to fund punitive programs than assistance programs that could preempt crimes? I have several theories:

1. Post hoc measures are more inherently more certain. You know that the treatment is being applied in the specific cases you want. With prevention it's impossible to know if any given intervention accomplished something, and very difficult to assess if the overall program is effective.

2. The USA specifically has a strong individualist streak. This has roots in a combination of (1) the cowboy myth / fronteir legacy of relatively infinite living space, (2) Protestant Christianity, (3) capitalism, especially post WW2 consumerism.

I recently heard a talk that argued that Regan synthesized these very effectively, pushing us forward from the Great Society era, which was more collectivist. The emphasis on individualism created contrast with the communist Soviet Union.

Even more insane, Americans ALREADY pay for all the uninsured through their insurance fees, as the cost of healthcare for the uninsured is passed along to insurance companies by the providers in the form of higher prices.

I'd only correct your post by saying that it's not about paying extra, it's about paying the same amount and/or less to someone other than a for-profit insurance company. I am in Germany and am totally blown away by the German health insurance system. It seems to work really well for all concerned.

"Even more insane, Americans ALREADY pay for all the uninsured through their insurance fees"

Exactly. But while it's called "insurance fee" not "tax", it's somehow OK, even though tax extra would amount to less than insurance -- yet another paradox I honestly don't get.

I am not American, but follow their politics closely and I think that many people over there became convinced over years of massaging that they shouldn't spend taxes on anything that helps individuals, i.e. military is seen as composed of patriots who do the heroic work of protecting the nation and thus deserve to be paid by taxes, but when it comes to healthcare, many don't want to pay for what they perceive to be lazy people who can't pull themselves by their bootstraps and get a job good enough to pay private insurance, because they simply refuse to work hard enough - whatever that means.

As an European, I find this kind of attitude towards fellow citizens really barbaric and strange, but this is my observation.

That's not it.

The issue is that government programs in the US have a history of being poorly run, abused, expensive and totally unable to be reformed once in place.

There is a separation between "wanting healthcare" and "wanting government healthcare." It's a lack of faith issue combined with a history devoid of contrary examples.

> The issue is that government programs in the US have a history of being poorly run, abused, expensive and totally unable to be reformed once in place.

That is true, but isn't that because they're being used to play politics? ie. being poorly funded to prove that government programs don't work, or awarding massive contracts to private contractors that fail to deliver quality due to corruption, (campaign contributions etc. ) and lack of oversight?

Could definitely be a contributing factor.

The lack of reform is politically based because you can't even have the conversation without somebody jumping to "they want to take away...!"

Bang on. Across the globe, citizens of every other nation cannot fathom why the US prioritizes military spending above all else. It just doesn't make sense.

because we're subsidizing europe, which is a huge free rider on the US military. If Putin for whatever reason decided to become an expansionist power and the US had an european level military, no one could stop him.

Europe in general has been massively subsidized in different ways by the USA from the end of WW2. They turn around and love to show off their moral superiority while someone else picks up the bill.

I agree with that (though things are slowly getting better in Europe), but then why average Joe from USA is OK with government subsidizing Europe with his tax money, but freaks out on the idea of paying for his own healthcare from the same tax money?

Because the average joe can't afford to pay any more in taxes. If only Europe would build up their own military, and help out a little.

> why average Joe from USA is OK with government subsidizing Europe with his tax money

Where do you get the idea that "average Joe" is okay with that? It's been a huge talking point for Trump and his supporters for the past two years.

Also, the majority of American's are actually in favor of having some kind of sane medical system, like other first world countries. That's well supported by polling (though interestingly they don't like "Obamacare" but do like all the policies that make up the Affordable Care Act)

This was also a talking point for Trump and his supporters for the past two years. ("we're going to have insurance for everyone", "No cuts to medicaid", "No one will lose coverage", "Nobody will be worse off financially", "I am going to take care of everybody … Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.")

Of course, in that case as well, he took them for the rubes they are and likely had no plan for delivering on his promises.

Government programs can be victim to massive amounts of fraud and waste, as well as put people through a lot of hoops in order to gain the same benefits or less you had before. It has no real pressure day to day to do well, and is very slow in accepting innovations or changes.

We simply don't trust government to provide good service overall. And a lot of experiences tend to come from this; trying to get a local government to do anything to benefit a community is like pulling teeth. We'll be in the middle of economic decline, and they'll be repurposing land into dog parks.

> because we're subsidizing europe, which is a huge free rider on the US military.

Even given that, the budget is massively overblown.

> If Putin for whatever reason decided to become an expansionist power and the US had an european level military, no one could stop him.

You seem to appeal to extremes. Ignoring how unlikely for that is to happen, you still don't need ~1000 military bases around the world, or would 500 be too little to stop Putin?

> Europe in general has been massively subsidized in different ways by the USA from the end of WW2. They turn around and love to show off their moral superiority while someone else picks up the bill.

That is the cost of being as global superpower and the world police, you pick up some bills, but you also get away with a lot of crap that others wouldn't.

The thing I don't understand about the subsidization argument is that it suggests Europe would choose to spend what America is spending, if America wasn't doing so already.

I think Europe has fundamentally different ideas about the cost/benefit of investment in military. If the US went all-in on isolationism and drastically cut back military spending, Europe likely wouldn't replace American spending dollar-for-dollar. Instead they would spend more on other things, such as health care.

> because we're subsidizing europe, which is a huge free rider on the US military.

The vast majority of US spending since 2001 has been wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have nothing to do with the defense of Europe. This article has a good example of the spending increases specifically earmarked for Iraq/Afgahnistan: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/01/07/every...

That ignores things like the excessively high hours on F-18 airframes from a higher than anticipated rate of deployment, causing increased repair/replacement costs and lower airframe availability, even after: http://breakingdefense.com/2017/02/62-of-f-18-hornets-unfit-...

> If Putin for whatever reason decided to become an expansionist power and the US had an european level military, no one could stop him.

There are other, much cheaper solutions to this - note that the US and EU have made it politically untenable for Russia to resolve the invasion of Ukraine in their favor, with extremely minimal deployments of military forces (a few show of force exercises in eastern Europe with NATO members or partners).

"Bang on. Across the globe, citizens of every other nation cannot fathom why the US prioritizes military spending above all else. It just doesn't make sense."

The goal is to maintain the Pax Americana. The power and influence leads to a strong economy, which helps offset the cost.

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