A recurring complaint in American political discourse is the short-comings of the healthcare system in the US. There are frequent cries for the government to do more to improve the system, with a significant faction desiring government-run healthcare of some sort. This faction often compares the system in the United States negatively with systems in other countries, most frequently comparing the US healthcare system to the universal healthcare systems in Canada and the UK. It is often said, hyperbolically, that the US doesn’t spend anything on the healthcare of its citizens. The complaint that the US doesn’t spend money on the well-being of its citizens commonly arises in the context of discussions on military and foreign aid expenditures, with people lamenting that if only we did not spend the money elsewhere then we could spend it on ourselves here. The fact of the matter is that the US does spend a significant amount (almost three-quarters of its budget) on purportedly helping its own citizens, as was discussed in the last feature of this series (link). This generous spending extends to healthcare, so I thought it would be interesting to do a quick back of the napkin comparison of US government spending on healthcare to that of other governments’ spending on healthcare, to see how it measures up.
A fair comparison of government healthcare spending would consider the matter on a per-capita basis, so that is what I set out to find. To compare the spending of the United States with that of the United Kingdom and of Canada, I used reports of their total healthcare spending in 2021 (source US, source UK, source Canada), converted to dollars using a currency conversion for the date Dec 31, 2021 (source), and divided this by their population (source). Additionally, I also converted the local currency to Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) dollars using the ratios calculated by the OECD (source) and calculated this on a per capita basis as well. The results are in the table below.
The result of this comparison is that the US federal government already spends as much or more money on healthcare for its citizens than the national governments of the UK and Canada, with their much vaunted universal healthcare systems. Not only is the US not being less generous towards its citizens than its peers, given the amount of spending it already does it could already provide a universal healthcare system of similar quality to its peers. The fact that it does not do this, despite the incessant clamor for a universal healthcare system among certain factions, points to the very real possibility that the citizens of the US would not be content with a healthcare system that matches the quality of that provided in the UK and Canada. I suspect that for all the complaints of high prices of medical care in the US (and I would be among those complaining) that these prices do in fact buy greater services than can be found in a universal healthcare system the likes of which Canada and the UK provide. If the US government were capable of providing a universal healthcare system that would satisfy its citizens on a budget similar to what its peers expend, it could already do so, as it already spends that much. The fact that it doesn’t do so indicates, in my opinion, that it cannot.
Out of further interest I decided to expand the comparison to other countries that are often cited as having good healthcare systems or good healthcare outcomes for their citizens. This was more difficult, as expenditure amounts were harder to find, so I often had to resort to reports from newspapers and some of the numbers available were suspiciously low. To provide a check on this, I also included the numbers calculated by the OECD (source), but the caveat here is that they do not disaggregate government healthcare spending from compulsory private healthcare spending. Perhaps this is the best way to look at it, as the various countries do have very different methods for structuring their healthcare systems, so this type of accounting does provide a comprehensive overview. In any case, the results are below.
It is clear that the US government is one of the leading nations for government healthcare spending per-capita, and when the compulsory private spending is included (as per the OECD) there is no other nation which comes close. The US healthcare system is already very well funded by government mandate, so the only conclusion to be drawn, in my view, on the question of healthcare in the US is that no more money need be expended, but that any remaining issues can and should be resolved through other reforms.
Great work Gadlfly. It is never about the amount of money it is about the destruction of limitations the Constitution puts on government on what government can make its citizens do. Also, I have never read of anyone being denied medical care (absent COVID vaccination status) ever outside very specific and narrow circumstance.
We already have universal health care. I don’t know about other states but in mine you can show up in the hospital penniless and they will sign you up for Medicaid right on the spot.
But what if you show up and aren’t penniless?
You will be.
Like the old joke about how to make a small fortune with a winery – start with a large fortune.
I just threw that in there. You don’t have to be penniless. You can just not have some other coverage.
There are income limits on eligibility for Medicaid, and a big part of the ACA was the “Medicaid expansion”, which included raising those limits and increasing Federal subsidies but also came with other strings attached, so some states opted out of it (I highly doubt NY was one of those states)
You will still get the best medical care.
Then there will be bills, you can choose to pay them or not. If you don’t, the only repercussion might be on your credit score. But I say “might” for a reason. First of all, chances are extremely good that it will be paid off by some local or state program. If not, it may be given to a collector, and that will affect your credit. However, if you arrange a payment schedule with the provider, this won’t happen. Often that can be done for a small amount per month.
It won’t hurt your credit score anymore: https://www.cnbc.com/select/medical-debt-credit-report/
I work in collections and it frustrates me to no end at how medical providers become villfiied. Most of them bend over backward to either write stuff off, offer no interest payment plans, or thousands of other ways to pay it off. The ones that get sent to us (or used to get sent to us) were those that had high credit scores, employment, and still refused to pay.
Budget some goons to go baseball bat them across the shins.
“Now you might need some MORE care!”
All politics is bourgeois politics. So anything less than the professional-managerial class getting everything they want immediately and for free is indistinguishable from Dickensian London.
Thanks! And you’re right, the money is really not the main issue, but it’s still a big one.
So what you’re saying is, Fuck you, cut spending?
At the very least, stop increasing it.
Still a cut. – government math
In America you have a right to procure healthcare. You do not have a right to put a gun to someone’s head for it.
Yet.
Except at the ER.
Healthcare is neither a right nor a privilege. It’s a service provided by others.
You’re not down with the Newspeak. Now, “Right” means “something I want someone else to pay for.”
any remaining issues can and should be resolved through other reforms
Other things being equal, this is a populatiion issue, not a health care issue. Reducing the number of health care recipients would seem to be the right approach. I have a few ideas…
1. Get rid of those hideous anti-smoking ads, replace them with ads that glorify and encourage smoking. More smoking = shorter life expectancy = reduced health care costs.
2. Encourage mandate mass injection of the populace with substances which may or may not have unpleasant side effects. Oh, they are already doing that? Never mind.
3. Foment wars in far-away lands no one heard of. Preferably commit troops there. Even better, try to commence nuclear hostilities. Wait, they’re doing that, too?
Seems we are well on our way to solving this problem.
This is a good analysis. Unfortunately, the statist response will always be that the “other reforms” needed would be the government managing this relatively greater spending rather than leaving it to the market. The underlying argument is that we spend significantly more than societies with governmentally managed systems, but don’t get significantly better results (due to misallocation or the profit motive).
It would be great to get a reliable metric on healthcare quality. The problem is that building out a measure to capture that broad a concern is going to be very difficult. And my guess is that even proving we get better value wouldn’t change their position.
At this point, I’m inclined to let government healthcare advocates opt into government-run healthcare – their local VA hospital. Only no switchbacks after opting in (Obviously, veterans would have the option of later opting out).
It is hard to compare healthcare quality. But we could measure, say, health in Norway vs health of Norwegian descendants in America.
Failing to break out like that causes major mix issues.
And my guess is that even proving we get better value wouldn’t change their position.
Of course it wouldn’t – that doesn’t establish that control and power are what matters.
Thanks. And you’re right, it’s depressing how frequently other people think that if only the government were managing something that it would be better. Some people clearly view the government as a magical black box of wish fulfillment.
A healthcare quality metric would be great, and many have tried, but the impossibility of it is that quality is somewhat subjective and underlying life-style choices have a major effect on health outcomes.
I’ve seen a couple of metrics thrown out – cancer survival rates, for example – that seem to address the actual quality of the medical care itself. But, even if there weren’t an incentive to game those numbers, figuring out how to aggregate them meaningfully would be very difficult.
I think you put more work into this research then any individual Congress critter.
We could do the same researching to funding of education. People just cannot fathom how much money we are putting into these programs and they only want to listen to their favorite congresscritter or talking head…never want to look into it.
Don’t need any research to say “We need to spend more”.
+1 Pass the bill to see what’s in it.
That would be interesting. I’ll put that on my idea list and may do that as an article (if the numbers are relatively easy to find – I usually abandon an idea if I can’t find something on Wikipedia or within the first 5 pages of Google/Duck-Duck-Go search results).
Sadly that may well be true.
1. Refund it all.
2. Build a home gym with the money.
3. Everyone is better off, mentally and physically.
This.
Also, kill the farm subsidies while you’re at it. When corn, soy and wheat are returned to market-based systems, people will naturally eat healthier.
Or grow more barley to be malted and made into tasty beverages.
Sadly, they’d likely end up as beer and whisky.
In the US, they’d end up as whiskey.
That sounds good but food production is a strategic asset. You would absolutely have to be very pro-active on tariffing the import of any foreign subsidized food. Otherwise the domestic market could be destroyed, then you are as screwed as the western Europeans trying to buy gas right now.
+1 Japanese dairy and rice market
1-to-1 tariff. $1 tariff for every dollar of subsidy.
You could build quite a nice home gym with $4,400.
Youtube is full of gym bros that build home gyms for $1,000*.
*mostly starter gyms.
It has become evident through COVID that we already have government-run healthcare. You got the treatments the government allowed, in the manner the government allowed, and meanwhile the government completely subsidized the “vaccines” and then mass-administered them. Any pretense of private actors and market dynamics are just clever fictions. Lest we forget, the guy who bought the rights to a drug and thought that meant he owned it is now behind bars (for “totally unrelated” reasons).
The biggest complaints people lodge against this system basically boil down to:
1. It isn’t delivering perfect results, unlike [fictional version of some other country]
2. It’s really expensive, both in terms of total cost and end-user-paid cost
3. It’s full of faceless bureaucrats who don’t care about you
4. “Somebody somewhere is making a profit and this is the reason for all of the problems”
Since (1) is trying to compare reality to fantasy, it can be discarded out of hand. And (3) is not much better, since faceless bureaucracy is pretty much synonymous with “public healthcare system”. There’s always a happy path and many exceptional paths, and you can generally expect shitty treatment anywhere in the world if you fall into one or more of the exceptional paths. The goal of any bureaucrat is to interact with the public as little as possible while making as much money as possible from the public trough.
That leaves (2) and (4) which are pretty tightly related. Much more of the expense is paid by the end-user than in some of the other Anglophone countries, but when one steps outside of the Anglosphere, the situation is not so rosy. There are still significant end-user costs for a lot of healthcare expenses in France, Singapore, Switzerland, and many other places roundly considered to have “universal public healthcare” systems. And even in the U.K. there remains the “private option” which you are obviously going to have to pay out of pocket for.
The profit complaint is also a bit ignorant, since you better believe there’s still profit being made in the U.K. and Canada. Somebody has to supply the hospitals and doctors’ offices with equipment, and they’re not doing so for free. Even generic medications are made by for-profit companies. There may be caps on profit, but there are also caps on Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement rates. This complaint also fails to account for the fact that, in most industries, the profit motive drove prices down, not up. High margins is prime avenue for a competitor to sweep in and eat your lunch through low-margin bulk sales (e.g. Walmart, Amazon, Aldi, etc.).
This just leaves the “total cost” part of (2) as the sincere legitimate complaint (from the “muh public healthcare” side of the aisle, at least). Yet the U.S. is also unmatched in healthcare “outputs” including drug prescriptions, surgeries, cancer treatments, organ transplants, diagnostic tests, etc. Sometimes the success rates are not much better than other places, but that’s beside the point that the per-capita quantity is still much higher.
TL;DR: In the U.S., insurance companies are government agencies in all but name
Yes – They enforce government policy far more effectively than any actual government agency.
There’s a term for that….
A whole bundle of them?
Well, one all alone is easily broken.
It makes the trains run on time?
Individual state agencies.
Which is cool because it really makes it difficult for new entrants into the markets.
Good analysis. I do think the main reason for (2) is that the US seems to build out more capacity (hence shorter wait times) than other nations and likes to indulge in the cutting edge (and therefor very expensive) medicines and procedures more than other nations. Gold plated service is expensive.
And note, it isn’t just access to healthcare now, it is access to high-quality heathcare. Everyone but the elite must be funneled into one level; the elite of course will have a ‘separate but equal’ system.
Some people are more equal than others, after all.
Now that’s funny. Amber Heard promised half her divorce settlement to the ACLU – then stiffed them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP4O66VWR_I
My two teens are getting front row seats of the consequences of sticking it in crazy.
A lesson best learned beforehand but most frequently learned after the fact.
Unfortunately, a couple of dates before climbing into bed is not going to identify most crazies.
There is of course a lesson in that too. Gotta balance the risks/rewards.
Just in the cost of replacement bedding alone.
As are my two early twenty-somethings. Reminds me of a t-shirt given to me by an old friend: “Find a purpose in life. Be a bad example.”
Old news dragged up by the trial?
Because we just have money lying around to use for proxy wars.
The Biden administration is sending a $33 billion supplemental funding request to Congress aimed at supporting Ukraine through a new phase over the next several months as Russia continues its war. It includes funding for security, economic, and humanitarian aid.
Lol, sure…
What will that put us up to? 100 billion? That is just us. Why is the world dumping so much into this?
Printing presses still work!
On both fronts. Some of that $33 billion is going to fund “independent press”…funded by a government…my brain is fucking broken.
I’m sure all the money will be well spent. It’s not like the Ukraine is corrupt or anyting.
Just like all that Covid funding!
🙄
Find all those “NATO Good” remarks yet?
🙂
It was inferred. Did you find anywhere I cheered Putin/Russia?
(I thought everyone understood the “Z” avatar I had for awhile was done ironically.)
You weren’t Zorro Cosplaying?
Sure, but I’ll need someone that looks like Catherine Zeta-Jones as well.
“Inferred”.
OK. Right.
Why does it feel like the 1920s and 30s all over again? Socialists and fascists bickering over which grand scheme is better. Proles suffering, no matter the scheme.
We are just settling back into the natural state of humanity?
And we’re still ruled by Harvard, Yale, and Princeton shitheels.
Huh – TIL that Thomas Dolby played the synth on Waiting For A Girl Like You. Oh, and Mutt Lange sang backup on “She Blinded Me With Science”.
Was Lange the guy yelling “SCIENCE!”?
That was Magnus Pyke
The thing that never seems to get mentioned is that in the US there is both Medicare and fully paid state and federal employee healthcare. Once you knock those two issues out you wind up with far fewer uninsured. After you add in the Medicaid folk the number drops even lower.
Problem for the Progs is it still isn’t universal. Problem for the rest of us is we have tied insurance to work. And while Obamacare got rid of this to some degree we still have the issue of adverse selection. Those folk who aren’t eligible for insurance via work as a group generally have higher claim rates.
OT – Once again – don’t rent an automobile you care about through Turo. If you want to make a go as a small business that’s a different story.
A Tesla owner catches a person switching his car parts after renting it on Turo app, using live gps and live cameras view through the app.
TLDR – Some company that makes body kits decided to rent his auto and disassemble it. I don’t think they intended to switch parts on it when they returned it, but high probability they broke some clip or fastener or don’t properly put it back together. Solid douche move. Also from my quick read breaks somes terms of service.
Subject to your compliance with the provisions of these Terms, Turo grants you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable license, to access and view any Turo and/or user content to which you are permitted access, solely for your personal and non-commercial purposes.
Making any unapproved alterations, additions, or improvements to any vehicle
The man can barely speak.
NOW – Biden to seize assets of Russia’s kleptocracy.
Hopefully someday we can do something about the ill-gotten gains of the American elites.
Sen. Warren’s ears perk up.
So now we are like that guy from The Wire who stole from drug dealers?
Calling them a kleptocracy makes it okay to steal their money without any due process.
President Omar would be a much better option.
Seriously, poor analogy Drake!
“President’s comin'”
Whistling as he strolls over for the State Of The Union, shotgun in hand.
I’d pay to see that.
“When you come for the president…”
Hopefully someday we can do something about the ill-gotten gains of the American elites.
Ten percent seems about right.
We will absolutely see this turned on Americans using the same language. Trial run done overseas to hammer out the details, just like the War on Terror is morphing into a war on domestic extremism.
war on domestic extremism
“Extreme” is a relative term. And it is a war on dissent from the regime.
Yes, I’m aware.
That’s sounds like extremist’s words.
*points to Canada*
Oh yes, they’re dying to do that to Americans, without using the court systems.
So, Russia’s leadership is a kleptocracy. And our leadership is taking their assets without any sort of due process or permission by the owner.
About that whole “kleptocracy” thing….
https://www.axios.com/fda-rule-menthol-cigarette-flavored-cigar-bc4d79b5-123d-48cb-87b3-06be536576e6.html
The war on menthols marches forward.
And in any other case other than tobacco this would be immediately called out as racism by the usual suspects.
It’s not racism when you want to “help” them.
The seventies called – they want their advertising slogans back.
Kool
If I had any multimedia skillz I’d do a rap battle between Kool and Newport, with Salem as the moderator.
If they had pulled this shit in 1967, cities would have burned. Wait…
I wonder how much population density plays into this? Anecdotally, the hospital in the small town (<5000) I live near just got a very nice remodel and has a lot of services that a person might not expect in a town this size. But we need it because the next closest city of any size (and therefore with a full-service hospital) is 50 miles to the south. Every other direction you'd have to go 100+ miles.
No doubt there are similar examples all over fly-over country. I wonder if you could devise some kind of population density factor and apply it how the numbers would look. Or try and compare only the US states that have comparable population density to the UK.
Concentration probably has something to do with it as well. There’s three large hospital chains (Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth, University Hospitals) here in Cleveland, with hospitals and offices all over the place. They have gone for different specializations so there’s that at least.
But it also means that there’s a lot of nurses, doctors, and other people already keyed into the medical sector that are available for jobs.
This is a very good question, but also a very difficult one to answer since population density is not uniform. I suspect however that it does not play a huge role, as I imagine Canada and Australia probably have similar population distributions to the US (some very dense places and many very sparse places), although who knows how well they serve them.
In anything other than a company town, the largest employers are government entities and healthcare systems. There’s a lot of money sloshing around.
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2022/04/27/chicken-nuggets-spilled-Pennsylvania-highway-Bucks-County/1921651088055/
I had to reroute my commute for that fuckstick yesterday.
Not the Nuggets!
Shame we lost noted prog Harry Chapin or he could have immortalized it in song for us.
LOL. My son (student at U of Scranton) got a kick out of that one when I played it for him.
If you want to enjoy most art of any kind you have to separate the artist from the art. I like quite a few of Chapin’s tunes.
This one is the definitive version for me, if only for the “3,000 munchkins and a troll” line.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8I-zPmTPzM
I own this CD. Bought it in college more than a few decades ago.
Huh…This happened the other day.
box truck collided with a tractor-trailer on I-64 this morning — causing it to overturn and spill corn all over the roadway.
The Virginia Department of Transportation Culpeper District is reporting the left lane in the westbound lanes of Interstate 64 at mile-marker 124 is back open following the crash.
Reading through the comments this morning and here reminded me of this bit of leftist apologia which I saw on the official National Honor Society outing at my HS (we got a day off to go into the city!)
I wonder if the pantsuited one was at that screening.
Furiously scribbling notes.
Good timing. Lively discussion over health care this morning. Thanks for a great article!
You’re welcome. I saw that discussion as I caught the tail end of the links and thought it was indeed serendipitous that my article was set to post next.
I’ll take all the credit. As you should know, earlier this year I had Dana Snyder (Master Shake from Aquateen Hunger Force) guest star in my little cartoon. Now they are making new short form Aquateen episodes!
Hahahahaha. The Handbanana short is hilarious.
Congrats! The royalties will be rolling in any day now!
Royalties? He doesn’t even qualify for Nobilities. At best he might get Villeinies.
COKE FRENZY!
I suppose I am a Rogan bro, but I always want to break my phone when he criticizes our health response to Covid but then follows it up with “I’m a liberal, I support free healthcare.”
I guess no one is perfect.
The Adage “Your get what you pay for” was coined for good reason.
Always remember with Joe, he didn’t get where he is on his brains.
TIL there’s a 10/22 Reddit forum.
I love it.
Ignorant children film their crimes.
On Thursday morning protesters arrived at the two sites, Cobham Services in Surrey and Clacket Lane Services, Kent, at 7am, with the first arrests not taking place until after 11am.
Some sat down at the entrance to the sites blocking drivers from entering, while others defaced the pumps with orange paint and smashed the clear covering on the price displays.
That’s a funny word to use.
Keep fucking around and you’re going to find out.
I’d like to see an 18 wheeler full of nuggets roll over on them.
Self absorbed little shits.
OT: Styx with the black pill
Tl;dr: GDP contraction right now is a very bad sign for the next few quarters. With all the pumping, the expectation would’ve been nominal GDP growth. Bad stuff comes this fall when food prices skyrocket.
When is the official end of the next quarter?
June – results to be reported in July.
Summer of Recovery Redux! Biden II, Economic Boogaloo!
Styx with the black pill
It’s darkly amusing to consider that food prices aren’t already skyrocketing. *sigh*
Will dear leader repent?
Biden: “The greatest sin that anyone can commit is the abuse of power.”
Apparently he forgot that he was in the room when he said that.
My former ankle surgeon in Minneapolis (he was from Chicago) always liked to talk with me about politics.
The topic of the Swedish healthcare system came up. I related a couple of anecdotes, one of my own and one of a friend. The gist of the tales was that although the actual quality of care was good, the wait for it was insanely long . In my friend’s case, by the time his appointment finally rolled around, his case had advanced to the point he needed a different type of specialist and had to wait AGAIN.
My ankle surgeon had gotten to go on a 6 month stint to work with surgeons in Finland. One case in particular interested him, so he asked if he could be present when his hosts performed the surgery. They laughed and told him that poor patient wouldn’t be able to get in for surgery for at least two years.
I am certain if we had “single payer” we would also have heavily rationed care and long wait times.
Yes – demand for health care is essentially infinite, so you have to control the supply if there’s no market-based feedback mechanism.
Couple of things.
1. Sweden also has private healthcare. Those with money buy it because it’s higher quality. The number of people who use it increases every year.
2. Sweden has totally decentralized health care. It would be like if states and regions provided their own health care systems and not the federal government. I’d be much more fine with this.
I try to explain this to people sometimes and just blank stares as it contradicts popular talking points.
American health care is waaaaaaay more socialist than Northern European health care. Way more.
I don’t see how.
50% of Swedish income goes to taxes.
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/consumer/swedes-face-problems-with-health-care-system?amp
(article in Singapore Times)
Not 50% here (yet) but add in property tax, sales tax, fuel tax, etc. ad nauseam and we’re right there.
Crowder on universal healthcare.
Reminds me of that story of the guy in the UK who resorted to pulling out his own tooth with pliers because the wait for a dental appointment was like a year.
https://thecountersignal.com/france-introduces-digital-id-days-after-macron-election/
The battle is coming.
That is a fuckin’ red line right there.
^
Very much so.
It ends with blood. They will not relent.
The technology is within their reach now and they can taste the power. There is nothing the bureaucracy would love more.
We should test it…on them. Publicize the results.
I pretty much assume everyone in government already has one and it is used to keep them in line.
Making it public would be refreshing though.
Well If I do…my score is terrible
Klaus’s minions going ahead with the plan.
Hans Christian Anderson warned us about Klaus
This went right over my head when I read this as a young lad:
The farmer’s wife and the sexton were sitting at the table all by themselves, and she was pouring out wine for him, while his fork was in the fish, which he seemed to like the best.
The other night I was watching something or other, and they were pushing an Oprah Winfrey ekspozay! on health (care) in America.
Did you know the single most important determining factor of your health and longevity is your zip code? It is. Would Oprah lie?
Well, then just move everybody into 90210. I mean, duh.
Nah, no movin’ required – just renumber ALL of them to be 90210.
Concentration probably has something to do with it as well. There’s three large hospital chains (Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth, University Hospitals) here in Cleveland, with hospitals and offices all over the place. They have gone for different specializations so there’s that at least.
But it also means that there’s a lot of nurses, doctors, and other people already keyed into the medical sector that are available for jobs.
Driving around Indianapolis, you could easily conclude health care is half the economy.
I wouldn’t be surprised (if you removed government), that health care was easily half of the Cleveland economy. In recent history the hospitals have been the largest employers in the city. And that’s just by what I can pull up from 2016, the last couple of years wouldn’t have shrunk that spending.
Cleveland employment by industry:
1. Education and Health Services
2. Trade, Transportation, and Utilities
3. Professional and Business Services
4. Government
#1 is 19%. This is employment, not economy, but probably a decent proxy.
Shouldn’t most of the Education fall under government spending as well?
Unless they’re breaking it down by government schools and private schools.
It should, but you know, statistics.
Comparisons between countries on healthcare spending misses two points: differences in demographics/healthcare consumption and on the supplier side how much cost shifting is done between jurisdictions. It’s easy to have relatively low priced drugs if another country or group is subsidizing either the initial development or the ongoing supply. Kill the golden egg laying goose and suddenly the entire farm starts looking a bit more shabby.
[snort] The Bee is having too much fun.
Under that one:
Is Your Teenager Secretly A Libertarian?
9 Warning Signs To Look For
Under that one:
7 Dangerous Books That Could Radicalize Your Child
Ha!
11) Tesla Parking Attendant at Twitter HQ: The new Twitter overlord is most merciful.
::ponders modifying Glibs screen name. Thinks better of it::
Sort of on topic.
https://nypost.com/2022/04/28/measles-outbreak-forecast-as-cases-spike-79/
“In 2020, 23 million children globally missed out on essential vaccines provided routinely by public health services — including inoculation against measles — due to the pandemic, poverty and civil unrest in several countries.”
Unintended consequences. Measles is far more dangerous to kids (and moreso to adults) than the vid, this is not pretty. I have not very fond memories of being laid up with measles as a kid.
The public health apparatus really showed its ass over the last couple of years by focusing maniacally on just a couple of statistics.
All it’s proven to me is that none of them should ever be allowed anywhere near power or influence ever again.
Which of course means, PROMOTIONS ALL AROUND!
And here it comes, right on cue.
“Emergency”. That word seems to have lost it’s meaning.
I’ll go one better with a drug that we know kills and does nothing.
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-approves-first-covid-19-treatment-young-children
This is nothing short of sanctioned murder in order to preserve a fiction of efficacy.
“We believe mRNA-1273 will be able to safely protect these children against SARS-CoV-2, which is so important in our continued fight against COVID-19 and will be especially welcomed by parents and caregivers.”
How many thousands of viral generations are we now separated from the strain that this “vaccine” is based on?
What parents have been feared into is that SARS-CoV-2 is a danger to their shitstains.
Not unintended – they knew it would happen. It’s about control, so they’re fine with stuff like this.
Somebody should write that down somewhere…
No it wasn’t. At its peak prevaccination, measles killed under 600 people of all ages per year with an average under 500. It was far less infectious than covid.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/articlepdf/209448/joc70121_2155_2163.pdf
Many diseases of the past have this popular memory of being horrendous but that was often not the case. Glad there are vaccines [that mostly work], infectious rates are next to zero in developed countries, and don’t have to work about them anymore.
Note the number of deaths here in the 0-17 age group. Less than 600 per year. And the kids who don’t die tend to get a lot sicker. Of course you are correct about overall mortality – victim of popular memory here *crawls under rock*
I forgot how television was always cringily bad.
It was downright painful to try to force myself to watch an episode set in a game development company in 1993. It was clearly written by someone who knows nothing about computers, game development, or business.
We remember the good old days by forgetting the sea of crap they floated in.
Very true.