Hepatitis can be prevented through vaccination, which a universal health care system would provide. Through treatment, which a universal health care system would provide. And proper sanitary conditions, which taking care of people so they don't have to live on the streets would provide.
Maybe our situation is better here in this regard, I don't know the statistics, but it's demonstrably false that universal healthcare automatically prevents hepatitis outbreaks.
A well functioning society, where people don't live like dogs in the street, does.
>or prioritizing the right interventions at the right time given limited resources.
I doubt nations that can spend billions on pet food have "limited resources" for things as insignificant budget-wise as hep vaccines.
I guess I've never lived in or visited a well functioning society then. I have lived in two countries with universal healthcare and visited many more and they all have homeless populations living on the streets. Whether they live "like dogs" would be a subjective call I guess.
I don't think you understand the term 'limited resources'. The opposite would be 'unlimited resources', not 'a different allocation of limited resources than I would prefer'.
Then you maybe don't understand that it doesn't take "unlimited resources" to vaccinate people, and that not all "allocations of limited resources" make sense or are to be respected or are inevitable like the laws of physics.
Like one can't use the excuse that they have "limited resources" for feeding themselves if at the same time they spend 10 times the money in trivial BS like fancy clothes or the latest and greatest smartphone -- they'd be (rightly) laughed off. Sure, they can spend their money wherever they want (it's a free country, after all) -- they just don't get to invoke "limited resources" afterwards as the reason they didn't do something that should have gotten a much bigger priority.
The same goes for societies. They can opt not to vaccinate people, but unless they are some dead poor developing world country, they don't get to use "limited resources" as the reason for doing so. Twisted sense of priorities would be a much better fit.
Like... you actually believe merely having UHC will somehow stop stupid people from either 1) being disgusting or 2) being too stupid and forgoing vaccinations.
Like, you actually think that EVERYONE who suffers is doing it simply because they can't walk into their local hospital and be like "hook me up with them needles." People like Jenny McCarthy talking about how vaccinations cause autism don't actually exist.
And I say all this as a freakin' liberal. Come on guys. Up your brain game. Because this is one step above the political discourse equivalent of a a bumper sticker. Just chant and shoehorn in whatever catchphrase / slogan that's barely applicable into the conversation.
A bumper sticker has never changed the world.
You rant about changing the world yet propose no solution or alternative of your own.
Plastic bags are terrible for the environment. They're not recyclable unless that type of plastic is in demand. Even then, it's often shipped to China. Most companies don't touch it because there is so little return and things like staples or food particle can contaminate whole batches if they get through sorting.
Most of the the homeless people are likely eligible for California Medicare.
“California Medicare” is not a thing that exists. You are perhaps thinking of Medi-Cal, which is California’s Medicaid program (Medicaid is for the medically indigent, and is partly federally funded and administered by the states; Medicare is federally administered, and for seniors and certain disabled.)
But given the actual conditions San Diego started in, did the lack of plastic bags cause this specific outbreak? Which is the actual prompt. Seems inconclusive from the article, but not casually dismissable.
Some people just don't want us to have the right system.
The right system is the solution.