[–] mr_skeltal 1 point 1 point 2 points (+2|-1) ago
Well I'm not an American but I'm a leftie who agrees with a lot of Sanders' policy ideas. To speak about your free education and healthcare points, we have both of those in Ireland already and they work pretty well. Everybody can go to college or the hospital without being in danger of bankruptcy so it definitely works here. Whether it can be scaled to the US or not, I don't know.
[–] Imapopulistnow 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Murican here. My perspective is that Ireland has a balanced appraoch that supports both social programs and market-based economic policies. In the States we are divided and those who advocate social programs are extremely anti-business and those who are pro-business are extremely anti-social programs.
[–] Keftedes89 1 point 0 points 1 point (+1|-1) ago
I wonder why USA has the best doctors in the world. I wonder why k-12 education is shit in the states (because it is government funded) but the states has the best universities in the world. Some things need to be done about the current prices of both education and healthcare, but to tell me they need to be free(paid for in taxes)? No thanks.
[–] mr_skeltal 0 points 3 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago (edited ago)
I can respect your position. I guess it's impossible important to remember that the free education policy was introduced at a time when Ireland was in a worse recession than 2008 and it served to make Ireland marketable as a country with a highly-educated and English speaking workforce. It's not entirely free either, the government pays your tuition fees once for a four year course. If you have to repeat any years or study further afterwards you have to pay for yourself. Plus there's an annual capitation fee that is currently about 5,000 I think but it's been steadily increasing every year. It was 3,500 when I was in college back in 2008.
About the healthcare one, we have private hospitals as well and most people don't qualify for a medical card. It really is only for the most vulnerable in society. I tried to get one when I was 23 and on the dole and I couldn't get one, they don't just hand them out to anybody.
Edit: typo
[–] gonzoforpresident 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
The US actually gets significantly better health care results than Ireland (and most other single payer countries) according to the OECD's data. I'm on my phone, so going into detail is a pain, but I discuss it in detail with links to the OECD studies here. Read all of my comments to get all of the links.
Another good read on the subject is How American Healthcare Killed my Father. I don't agree with all of his proposed solutions, but he identifies a lot of issues that would reduce costs and improve results here in the US.
[–] mr_skeltal 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
That's interesting, I was under the impression American healthcare and insurance was insanely expensive. Here, if you are unemployed or otherwise disadvantaged you have a state-issued medical card that entitles you to free GP visits and greatly reduced medicine costs. I've never heard about medical bills ruining anybody unless they were middle class with no health insurance and got a rare disease.
[–] FoolyCooly [S] 1 point -1 points 0 points (+0|-1) ago
They are not free. You're paying for healthcare and an inefficient government bureaucracy. You're paying for a kid to go for a degree that will be a net negative on the economy while there is no incentive to pick a degree that will outweigh the actual cost of the degree. A role of prices is to force allocation of scarce resources. Both healthcare and education are not exempt from the laws of economics.
Government controlled healthcare and education would fail quicker in the US and be more of a drain on the economy than it is in Ireland because of our cultural diversity and immense size.
[–] sbirkenfeld 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
I don't agree. The only way it will fail is if corrupt policies are put in place. Our government wouldn't sabotage itself right?
You hit the nail on the head by saying that those policy changes would not be free and everyone who talks about them knows this. You just haven't understood that we're talking about our taxes helping the citizens. They would go to free education free healthcare instead of bailouts for wall street.
If both deadit and Voat are full of Bernie supporters... maybe that means our country is full of mostly Bernie supporters... Meaning lots of people disagree with you and he may (hopefully) win. That would allow the citizens to get some of their money back in the form of free stuff from the government.
[–] BoiseNTheHood ago
But, but, muh roads. :(