Government spending graph .....! Healthcare!
 

Some observations .....

* We have no national health care yet look at the cost of "Health and Human Services" Americas biggest expense!

* Look at the "Social Security" costs, a large chunk of this is "Medicare" which is actually a health care cost.

* "Veterans Affairs" most of this is medical costs associated with veterans.

Total these health care costs along with the appropriate amount of interest on our national debt that funds these programs ... Did you have any idea it was this big a part of our nation's budget? The biggest by far!!!

The largest percentage of our tax's go to health care yet we technically have no health care.

Add private spending to this figure thru insurance companies and the total is mind boggling. Have any candidates discussed this obvious problem?

(###please start your own thread for military spending, different topic)


http://www.imagefilez.com/out.php/i207588_chart.gif



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Where the fuck are you getting your information? Read the fine print. Human services could mean anything. Half the defense spending isn't even categorized as something you would think even sounds military related.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/

of interesting note as well:
http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm

No need to turn ugly, the information source is at the bottom of graph. Human services is comprised of the following, ALL are health care related .....1) Administration on Aging; (2) Administration for Children and Families; (3) Health Care Financing Administration (Medicare and Medicaid); (4) Program Support Center; and the eight divisions that together constitute the U.S. Public Health Service: (1) Agency for Health Care Quality and Research, (2) Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, (3) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (4) Food and Drug Administration, (5) Health Resources and Services Administration, (6) Indian Health Service, (7) National Institutes of Health, and (8) Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.


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It is a tad misleading. Not all of that is technically spent on health care costs. Health and human services encompass a lot of areas.

The CDC and FDA fall under that part of the budget, which are two massive divisions of Health and Humans Services. Medical research grants for areas like cancer, HIV, and other diseases are given from this budget. The ACF handles child support enforcement, adoptions, foster care, and child abuse protection. The National Institute of Health falls under this department and handle a huge amount of biomedical research. Besides working on diseases, they run things like the human genome project and the National Library of Medicine. The Corps of Public Health house the Surgeon General and play vital roles in disease prevention as well as providing medical personnel and scientists for disasters in this country.

What I'm saying is that all that spending isn't for health insurance for people. A lot of shit falls under that department. Medicare/Medicaid does too, and is a big chunk of that budget. If we didn't have a government who let the drug companies write the Prescription Drug plan, we may not have spent that much. Nonetheless, Medicare is paid in part by taxes we have specifically set aside. It's in essence like an IRA for health insurance when we are older. It is run poorly, but still, we are paying for it with payroll taxes.

The embarrasing part of that chart is how much we pay toward interest on our debt. Imagine if we could wipe that out, health insurance for everyone would be easy then.

The point i was really trying to make is the amount of money spent for "healthy Americans" is our largest expense yet we have no health care services for the average taxpayer.

Granted some is spent on research and testing not office visits but it's still health care related.

I do see your point and I'm just trying to educate myself as well, Lee

i love canada......