From xxxxxx <[email protected]>
Subject It’s Our Choice: Medicare for All, or Endless War?
Date December 3, 2019 1:05 AM
  Links have been removed from this email. Learn more in the FAQ.
  Links have been removed from this email. Learn more in the FAQ.
[We could easily fund health care for all by ending military
boondoggles and fruitless wars. Here’s how. ]
[[link removed]]

IT’S OUR CHOICE: MEDICARE FOR ALL, OR ENDLESS WAR?  
[[link removed]]


 

Lindsay Koshgarian
November 20, 2019
OtherWords
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
* [[link removed]]

_ We could easily fund health care for all by ending military
boondoggles and fruitless wars. Here’s how. _

We could easily fund health care for all by ending military
boondoggles and fruitless wars., Rawf8 via Getty Images

 

If you’re following the presidential race, you’ve heard plenty of
sniping about Medicare for All and whether we can afford it. But when
it comes to endless war or endless profits for Pentagon contractors,
we’re told we simply _must _afford it — no questions asked.

According to one study, even if universal health insurance didn’t
bring health care prices down — an unlikely worst-case scenario —
we’d need an extra $300 billion a year beyond our current spending
to provide full insurance for everyone.

Where can we find it? In a giant pot of money that’s already rampant
with waste and abuse: the Pentagon.

Right now, only about one quarter of the $738 billion Pentagon budget
goes to our troops. The rest is mainly three things: the cost of
maintaining 800 military installations all over the world; lucrative
Pentagon contracts, which account for nearly half of the entire
Pentagon budget; and, of course, our never-ending wars in the Middle
East.

According to my research
[[link removed]],
if we end those wars, shut down wasteful and failing weapons programs,
and close unnecessary foreign bases, we could come up with an extra
$350 billion to spend on Medicare for All — without sacrificing
security.

As experts of various political stripes will tell you, the U.S.
military is carrying out a costly 20th-century security vision in a
21st century world. For instance, the Pentagon still keeps tens of
thousands of troops in Germany and Italy. Maybe 75 years after the end
of World War II (and nearly 20 years into our ill-fated Iraq
adventure) is a good time to finally bring those troops home?

Closing 60 percent of our foreign bases would save $90 billion a year.
There’d be enough left over for more than one foreign military
installation in each country on earth, if we insisted.

Right now, those bases enable our endless wars. Troops rotate from
Germany into the Middle East and Africa, and tens of thousands are
stationed in the conflict-ridden Middle East at any given time. Yet
our wars have only further destabilized the region. It’s time we
brought our troops home for good — and saved $66 billion each year
in the bargain

Then there are those highly paid contractors. For instance, the F-35
fighter jet is projected to cost more than the entire military budget
of Iran. But even after many years and massive cost overruns, the lead
Pentagon tester just reported
[[link removed]] that the F-35 is
still “breaking more often than planned and taking longer to fix.”

We should halt the F-35 boondoggle, cut back on 20th century war
technology like the aircraft carrier, and freeze nuclear weapons
spending, with the eventual goal of eliminating these weapons that
could wipe us all out at a keystroke.

All told, we could cut $100 billion from outdated, ill-conceived, or
outright dangerous programs like these. The contractors will howl, but
they’ve run things long enough.

None of this is as radical as it sounds. Today, military spending is
higher than it was at the peak of the Vietnam War. Even with a $350
billion cut, it would simply return to levels from the late 1990s.

Together with common-sense cuts to runaway overhead costs, and by
rolling current Pentagon health care costs into a universal health
plan, we easily get more than the $300 billion needed for Medicare for
All.

Which would make us safer: Medicare for All or endless wars? The
choice is ours.

_Lindsay Koshgarian directs the National Priorities Project at the
Institute for Policy Studies. This op-ed was distributed by
OtherWords.org._

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
* [[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web [[link removed]]
Submit via email
Frequently asked questions [[link removed]]
Manage subscription [[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org [[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]
Screenshot of the email generated on import

Message Analysis

  • Sender: Portside
  • Political Party: n/a
  • Country: United States
  • State/Locality: n/a
  • Office: n/a
  • Email Providers:
    • L-Soft LISTSERV