Healthcare in the USA

Thanks, obama

I had a $938,000 medical bill from June of 23 when I was in a coma for 2 months, had surgery and was hospitalized for 3. I paid $300 on that. Then a charity paid the rest and the hospital refunded my $300.
I'm guessing the person who made the meme has no idea what any of this is like.
Yes we do have medical problems in the US. No Socialism is not the answer.
You have to look at what created our current problem and undo it.
IE reverse what the AMA did after 1945 to reduce the number of doctors, go after the Insurance Execs and trial lawyers who took advantage of what the AMA did.

I don't think they are saying socialism is the answer.

I’m socialist and I think that is the answer

State (or collective) ownership of the means of production. Centrally planned economy. One-party rule and the "dictatorship of the proletariat". Aim of classless society.

The above is the definition of real world socialism. The issues are that one group controlling production stifled innovation and one system can fail whereas multiple systems can have some fail, but others succeed through competition. Centrally planned economies always fail because they cannot predict outcomes. Whereas a free market economy adapts to different outcomes automatically. One party rule stifles competition and innovation and keeps people from growing and adapting because they have no competition. Classless society can't exist because different jobs have different values. Can you imagine being a doctor over a grocery if you both get paid the same?
Again the only system that works is a free market system where the government is made up of multiple branches that keep each other in check.

Well, while it is true that centrally planned economies did face some complications, it was mostly due to both the fact that these plans were made mostly by humans and their fallacies caused inconsistences and issues along the way, alongside with the excessive bureaucratization the governments implemented. With the advancements of computers and artificial intelligence, centrally planned economies might be able to be achieved by real time processing and planning by computers, rather than being manually planned by humans, which would alleviate many of its past issues.

Also, if innovation is stifled under socialism, then how come the Soviets were able to rapidly industrialize, send satellites and people to space before the United States could, and be able to succeed in fighting the Second World War (while having the most casualties at 27 million) all within 30 years, let alone be able to compete with the power of the United States, and have the second largest world economy in its peak? Russia prior to forming the USSR was far from powerful compared to other empires, and their people lived in poverty.

Also the "Classless" society simply means that the people within WORKPLACE environments will be treated and represented equally, not that they will literally be the same together in a society, or get paid the exact same amount. So yes, doctors will be paid differently and far more compared to grocery store employees, but they will be paid enough so that they can be able to afford everything they need, while not overworked, exploited or abused by corporations or corrupt businessmen.

Lastly, the "dictatorship of the proletariat" doesn't mean what you think it means. Back in the 19th century, dictatorship meant that a specific class held the most authority and influence within a society, not the current meaning of a single ruler holding ultimate power. So what the phrase meant is that the working class will be able to gain the most control and influence within their society, democratizing and ensuring the protection and wellbeing of the working class.

Nope. I work with and program AI and no AI is smarter than the people its trained on and quite a bit less intelligent. They seem smart because they have access to all the information on the internet to cobble together, but they cannot solve problems that humans cannot solve.
Computer programs similarly are programmed by humans (or AI trained on humans) which means they are as flawed as humans. Even if you somehow managed to plan a perfect economy, it would function no better than a free market capitalist economy.

Russia mostly succeeded because they stole tech from other countries and their country is abundant with natural resources. They essentially ride on the back of the US and European innovation.

"Classless society" and yet in practice they get paid less and abused more. This is due to the artificiality of the system itself. In free market capitalism people get paid a wage the employer is willing to pay. If the worker is unwilling to work for that amount, they go somewhere else. This causes the employer to raise wages. If the employer has many willing candidates they can lower wages. This system naturally balances pay with economic conditions and supply and demand. Forcing specific pay will always fail, as we see in some US states where companies simply close stores because they can't afford employees due to state minimum wage.

dictatorship of the proletariat.
That's not how it works in practice. What's happens every time is the power hungry rise to the top claiming to represent the common worker and the do corrupt things in their own interests. As I said before the only system that works is one that pits greed and corruption against each other, like the United States 3 branches of co equal government.

Learn history please. No system that requires 100% buy in and forced actions of the people will ever work.

I am a history buff. I learned a lot about socialism and how it works. I can assure you that it’s contrary to what you are assuming. I can tell you because I actually read and learned from the Communist Manifesto, as well as from other important socialist ideas.

Socialism isn’t forcing people to do exactly as they say, it’s giving people the ownership of the means of production through worker cooperatives and democracy, something that has been shown to be successful, such as the Mondragón Corporation in Spain.

No actually socialism is telling the people you are giving people the ownership of the means of production through worker cooperatives and democracy, then ruling over them with a central government.

This is not exactly the case. Giving the workers the ownership of the means of production is the meaning of socialism. And while the state would optionally seize the means of production, the workers would mostly possess it.

The whole "ruling over them" part needs to be understood because Socialism is an 'Economic' idea, not a 'Political' idea, so anyone believing in it may have differing opinions on how the government may run. Even if this wasn't the case, many past Socialist nations fell to an authoritarian government due to frequent attacks from neighboring governments. Such as economic sanctions and embargos, economic warfare, civil wars, attempts to assassinate the head of state, attempts to overthrow the government, and so on. All of this breeds paranoia in the hands of not only its citizens, but the government itself, which in turn leads to the government implementing autocratic policies as a means of protecting their nation.

Had any of those neighboring countries never attacked socialist countries, it may have gotten to a different direction, but the world may never know.

No, what happens is corrupt people get in power and in the name of "the people" they implement totalitarian laws and kill anyone that opposes them. The corrupt people use the excuse of outside threats or famine or natural disasters to seize more power. Look at the classic example of Venezuela. They were one of the richest nations per capita, then socialism was voted in and it went to hell. Not because of outside forces or natural disasters but because the totalitarian government shut down the oil.

The only system that works is one that pits greed and power hungry people against each other with the requirement that they curry the favor of the people such as a republic with multiple coequal branches of government where representatives are elected by the people.

This isn't true at all. Yes, I will admit that Nicolas Maduro is a corrupt politician, and I have a lot of complaints about him. He is a very incompetent person himself who didn't do much to save his country, and his actions aren't excusable. But the idea of Venezuela being the "richest nation until socialism ruined it" is far from the truth.

Venezuela was a resource heavy country and it got rich by EXPLOITING its own people and selling their oil to richer countries such as the United States. So while Venezuela was rich, their people lived in poverty as the country didn't care about them. And yes, it was ruled by dictators as well.

Until 1998, the country was ruled by a 2 party system that held a monopoly on the country's political system, and didn't care about its own people, only the rich and the money they made from selling oil to other countries. Combine that with the financial incompetence they had caused them to endure financial debt that caused them to adopt even worse policies that further made things expensive for the already poor people of Venezuela, which contributed to the rise of Hugo Chavez in 1998.

Hugo Chavez is actually not a terrible person, despite what many think of him, and kept winning landslide elections due to his immense popularity, despite claims of election fraud, which were proven false by many organizations, including the Carter foundation in the U.S.

He helped alleviate the national debt, used the country's oil industry to finance programs to help deal with widespread poverty, lack of education and literacy, and its crippling healthcare system, which was resolved by the following decade, helping a lot of people by the end.

But he has issues, his overreliance on the oil industry, (a symptom of Dutch's Disease), as well as his financial illiteracy caused the country's economy to decline and eventually collapse by the late 2010s. That I won't excuse, this was incompetence. But combining the sanctions and economic warfare by other western nations further crippled its economy, worsening it.

So while I do think Venezuela has its issues and is facing a corruption crisis (that has nothing to do with the economic system of socialism), an overreliance on the oil industry, and widespread sanctions by other nations, you must consider the context of how the country came to be. You may criticize the country as you like, but you got to consider the context and the past events that led to Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro to gain power.

You literally see it in all the countries it's been tried in and still deny that's what happens. Please learn history.
In 1950 Venezuela was the 4th highest GDP per capita. That is the money the people were making not the government.
The voting machines that can be hacked by a a pre teen with a screwdriver and a USB drive were created in Venezuela.
You really need to just review the facts.

Just because the GDP is high, doesn’t mean the income and wellbeing of the people were high as well. It means that the country is rich through its productivity and economic growth, but it does not mean that the people living there are all rich. A country can be prosperous and wealthy, but the people might live in horrendous conditions. Even countries like Brazil which has a high GDP, people are facing huge inequalities and crippling conditions.

Again, 1950s Venezuela is led by a dictator while the majority of its people were in poverty. The country was practically used by western nations as a means of exploiting their resources for the sole purpose of enriching themselves, coming at the cost of neglecting the people who live and work for them.

Also, if you wanted to know which socialist experiment technically worked, then check out Chile under Salvador Allende. But before anyone asks, the reason why it barely lasted was because the government was overthrown, as America sanctioned and plotted a coup against the Allende government. They implemented Augusto Pinochet, who led a dictatorship that killed thousands.

I at least had the courtesy to learn what Socialism actually was, as I looked through manifestos, books, sources investigations, real world documents, and even reports from the CIA.

I’m not trying to convince you into being a socialist, I am simply just trying to present what actually happened and the history behind it.

Obamacare was designed to only benefit the Insurance companies