It cost Israel more than $1bn to activate its defence systems that intercepted Iran’s massive drone and missile attack overnight, according to a former financial adviser to Israel’s military.
“The defence tonight was on the order of 4-5bn shekels [$1-1.3bn] per night,” estimated Brigadier General Reem Aminoach in an interview with Ynet news.
“If we’re talking about ballistic missiles that need to be brought down with an Arrow system, cruise missiles that need to be brought down with other missiles, and UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles], which we actually bring down mainly with fighter jets,” he said.
“Then add up the costs - $3.5m for an Arrow missile, $1m for a David’s Sling, such and such costs for jets. An order of magnitude of 4-5bn shekels.”
That’s BS the US is already spending as many federal tax payer dollars per capita on healthcare as the UK is spending on the NHS. That’s not to say that the funding of the NHS is stellar but the service level is also in no way abysmal. Long story short: US taxpayers are not even close to getting their money’s worth because most of it is funnelled to private profits, not actual healthcare. Military has nothing to do with it the US could double the medical budget and it wouldn’t make a dent in the military budget.
The issue has and always will be that Medicare for all takes money away from the billionaire class.
Privatization is the reason for “small government”
I don’t seriously doubt this, but would like to verify. Links?
The WHO has all the data you could wish for. Long story short: About 55% of US health spending is public (as opposed to out of pocket or insurance), about 80% in the UK is public (covering the whole of the NHS) and here’s a nice overview from the world bank the UK has a total per-capita expenditure of $5,634 while the US clocks in at $11,702.
Oh and I kinda blanked on that: Not all of that is due to profit, much of it is plain inefficiency. E.g. people not going to the doctor because they can’t afford it, then making acquaintance with the ER even though it was avoidable, and the state picking up the bill to bail out hospitals because the patient can’t pay. Would’ve been much cheaper for the tax payer to cover that initial doctor’s visit and cheap preventive medicine.