Yes, runner, the Left is unhinged.

Dear Alan B,

You write;

"It's all well and good to talk about subsidised medicine and universal health care etc. Which does not end poverty, but rather, engrains it!"

Bunkum!

I invite you to go read some Joe Bageant to see how poverty is entrenched by the US medical system where the highest reason for bankruptcies is because of medical bills.

That any Australian could step forward and advocate we take the US path astounds me.

If you have any data to support your contention I would love to see it.

Data? How about our own postcode poverty traps where virtually all the recipients on virtually free medical care and a range of benefits.

Like those of single mums/deserted abandoned wives, on work start welfare.

As someone PARTLY raised by a single mum. I have some insights the self-satisfied better off can never ever comprehend! How difficult it really is, when you are bumped from pillar to post/dozens of different schools along the way.

I understand the objections from the far right, to vastly superior cooperative capitalism! Because it harms their preferred master-servant management model/control freak outcomes, made manifest by disgraced trickle-down economics/crumbs from the master's table, outcomes.

Or those of union advocates, who see the end of unionism as the intended/sanity driven OUTCOME. Plus the ultra expensive tax churn in insufficient quantities to actually lift those in, postcode poverty traps, out of them, as an actual bona fide OUTCOME!

Yes, the tax rate has come down in recent years, but on paper only. The actual reality? Not very much has changed save the revenue stream is now sourced far more from those with the least! The nation's alleged wealth is now predicated of record domestic/foreign debt.

Moved to that point, from a starting position, of being the third wealthiest nation on the planet/a creditor one at that.

If Australia inc. was a corporate entity with a record like that, the entire directorships/CEO's that have presided over this, ideological driven OUTCOME! Would all be booted, with no beg pardons.

Yes, credit where credit is due. We are a more socially advanced and progressive nation than the USA! Halleluja!

Do you think that entitles us to praise!? Given where we came from, the starting point and just how much better we could and can do if we gave ourselves permission!? Instead of trying to sell everything not nailed down!

Equality/true equitability would be an "outcome" and far superior to the political power "outcomes" that currently drive imbecilic policy SCIENCE/PRAGMATISM FREE power junkie paradigms today!
Alan B.

Steele. Not advocating anything like the American system! And any fair and impartial reading of what I have actually advocated would confirm, just that!

That said, we have a tidal wave of baby boomers hitting or about to hit retirement, And a time when tax revenue shrinks and from an even smaller cohort of income taxpayer cohort, just as the need for welfare support grows exponentially!

So, we used to means test our taxpayer-funded social welfare and should do so again! And were we to include health and education as we once did when we were both debt free and the third wealthiest nation on the planet, could conceivably do so once again!

And here I include all health and all education even tertiary education. Plus massive regional autonomy and the only tier of government we dn't actually o ever need, removed!

Our welfare could be far more generous if directed at the needy and not the greedy or those who think the privilege of living in a free and democratic society as taxpayers?

Confers a free ride and taxpayer-funded (bread taken from the mouths of babies) entitlement!

Moreover, redirected as proposed would massively improve discretionary spending as would the vastly cheaper power prices proposed! [And I get that's not what the coal-fired lobby want!]

Plus, give the domestic economy a turbocharge boost as would a manifestly more rational and unchurned, vastly less expensive, tax system!

Cooperative capitalism alone has the potential to improve the outcomes for virtually all Aussies, save the ner-do-well drones and bludgers/leaners.

[Cooperative capitalism is now, virtually non-existent in the USA as is social medicine/education! But more feel-good charity and folk with charity in their hearts!]

Some of Bludgers/Leaners are the rogue employers and past employers among us!

There's not very much to like or emulate in modern-day USA. And not who we should ape!
Alan B.

I thought after the Venezuala disaster socialist would crawl in a hole. Instead they continue to push their failed Marxist dogmas. Are the abc still inviting guests from Venezuala as a model of how things could be with free health cover for all? Thought not.

undermining Medicare's universality will undermine its support ; and quality would fall over time.

Venezuela isn't in a bad way because of 'socialism' ; but because foreign intervention is "making the economy scream" ; like in Chile under Allende. Corruption played its part ; but it's wrong to be wilfully ignorant of the place of intervention and destabilisation.