The health care issue in the USA isn't due to lack of funding, the US spends more on health care per person than any other country, double that of many European countries with single payer systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...

The costs of medicare, medicaid and CHIP to tax payers are about what most Europeans pay in tax for universal health care, but then they also need to pay for health insurance for themselves.

As for controlling Hormuz, the US military absolutely could control Hormuz. I'm confident it's quite capable of it. It's that the US public wouldn't support the immense cost in lives and treasure it would take to do it, and maintain that control. No other military could even try, but the the USA could. It's not a matter of lack of military capacity.

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ndsipa_pomu 2 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> As for controlling Hormuz, the US military absolutely could control Hormuz

I don't see how they could manage that without a full-scale invasion and control of Iran. It's far too easy for Iran to launch drones/torpedoes from small watercraft or from nearby land. I expect they could control Hormuz for a while, but it would be very expensive and I'd expect the logistics to break down fairly quickly if the economics doesn't stop it first.

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irishcule 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> the US military absolutely could control Hormuz. I'm confident it's quite capable of it. It's that the US public wouldn't support the immense cost in lives and treasure it would take to do it, and maintain that control

I never understood these kinds of arguments and they always come from those defending US military might.

Either they can do it or they cannot, if "the US public wouldn't support the immense cost in lives and treasure it would take to do it" is true, which it appears to be, then the US Military cannot control Hormuz.

	▲	steveBK123 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Right I think its only an interesting argument in separating existential vs non-existential threats to the country. So it means we aren't fighting in Iran the way we would in defending a hypothetical invasion of the lower 48 states, great. But does it mean we'd fight any differently in the South China Sea, a Russian incursion into Poland, etc. Unclear, and presidential whim based.

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scoofy an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The costs of medicare, medicaid and CHIP to tax payers are about what most Europeans pay in tax for universal health care, but then they also need to pay for health insurance for themselves.

People always say this, but I suspect Americans are more unhealthy in general and actually need more healthcare per person.

We have a development pattern where people barely walk, but less walk or cycle to work.

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nwatson 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Health insurance company margins are 3% to 5%. The book America’s Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Back-Room Deals, and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System (2015) by journalist Steven Brill blames mostly wasteful practices in hospitals, pharma and device manufacturers, government and corporate health administration costs.

	▲	ethbr1 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Not to dismiss your point, but the US healthcare system has one meta problem. Complexity. There are too many parties. There are too many bespoke party-party contract. There are too many new middle-parties being created, with their own contracts. There are too many systems. There's too much tech debt. That's a reason improvements to the US healthcare system have generally been via HHS/CMS imposing standardization mandates ('or no Medicare payments'). But providers, facilities, and insurers (most operating on low margins) can't be collectively more meta-efficient without simplifying the system. Single payer / Medicare for all is a critical start not because of coverage, but because of simplicity. There are so many intractable problems with the current system simply by virtue that changing anything about them requires 100s of parties to update 10,000s of party-party contracts and interfaces. That's the biggest source of waste in the current system: constant duplicative re-engineering.
	▲	orwin 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		US health insurance margins are thinner than European private insurance. Their administrative cost however are 9-10%, when in Europe (or really, France and Germany, I haven't looked elsewhere) they are 5-8%. The difference is probably in negotiating costs and audits. But that means that in total, for every 100 dollar paid, US insuree pay 4-10 dollar in efficiency+dividend that a European doesn't.
	▲	franktankbank 30 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Dumb argument though when UHG owns the hospitals, pharmacy and the insurance company. They can make the "profit" of any one of them be anything they want really.
	▲	simonh 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Thanks for the recommendation.

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thiht 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> As for controlling Hormuz, the US military absolutely could control Hormuz

They don't though

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aeve890 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>No other military could even try

Iran military is trying alright.

	▲	simonh 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You got me there.