Socialism for the elite but not for the masses?
During the first year of Obama’s first term, with the push for the ACA, conservative pundit Bill Kristol got trapped by Jon Stewart into admitting the US government can run a first class health care program, but only for the soldiers because the rest of the public doesn’t deserve it.
First class? HAH!
Granted, my anecdote is more than 20 years old, but a simple blood test almost put me out because the intern taking my blood had to try 5 times, in two veins, just to get the few ml she needed, after exploding the first vein
That can happen in privately run care, too. The point was more that a then-leading conservative admitted he doesn’t actually believe that socialized health care can be of good quality, but the common people just don’t deserve to have access to it.
Like I said… anecdotal. I’ve never had that problem with any other blood draw, ever.
When I was enlisted, the care sucked
When my daughter was an infant she needed a blood draw, I forget why, but the three people working in the hospital had no idea how to draw blood from an infant. They were trying to do it like you would an adult… and failing. Finally I told them to stop and went and found an older nurse. She came in, pricked her heel and all was done.
Mistakes can happen anywhere.
The military in general is like a complete socialist economy: socialized health care, home loan programs, car loan programs, banking, insurance, housing vouchers, tenant and homeowner protections, groceries at cost, retirement and pension, and to top it all off the thing itself is the country’s largest jobs program.
To add to this, something I like to point out to people, but (for the US) only ~60% of military personnel are ever deployed. Of those 60% only 10-20% will ever see combat. To top that off ~25% of the military are actually civilian service members, people who work for the military but are not soldiers.
So in summary, for each soldier that sees combat there are:
- ~6 deployed soldiers who will never see combat.
- ~11 non-deployed soldiers who never will be.
- ~6 civilian military staff who will probably never need to move for work.
Of these 24 people, all have access to the commissary, retirement and pension, top tier insurance, paid child care, up to 26 days of paid time off with 13 sick days and 11 fed holidays. The only things the military civilians don’t get are the VA, loan programs, and special protections.
So unless you’re a complete block head with no skills or talent your odds of joining the military and basically getting socialism with no risks is pretty high. Remember this the next time someone gets mouthy about respecting “the troops” or “serving their country,” odds are they didn’t do shit.
I used to work with a whole group of guys who their whole military career (20 years) was running a wastewater treatment plant on an Air Force base in the US, that’s it.
It may have changed since then, but after my dad left the USAF in the early '80s, my mom was a civilian employee on the base for a bunch of years, and we didn’t have access to any of the additional benefits. I know that we couldn’t go to Aaffes, the Px, or use any base services. Not sure about retirement / insurance at that time, but we certainly didn’t take advantage of insurance if it was available.
About the only thing we had access to was some of the Recreation services: My mom worked at Arts and Crafts, and that was attached to the Auto Hobby and Wood Shop so they let employees use those facilities, along with the place where we could rent lawnmowers and other recreation equipment.
Yeah, it may have changed. Here is the website for commissary eligibility, it looks like civilian employees get limited access (mainly grocery store like items). Here is a link to the Exchange, they get limited privileges or conditional unlimited privileges depending on their situation. Here is the website posting the Army Civilian benefits. Looking online they do have access to on base housing, but active duty get higher priority and may have to wait for an opening.
Here is the general DOD website for the civilian employee benefits, it looks like they get general federal employee insurance (generally considered to be good), and the general federal pension (20 years of service by 50 years old). This site also has more information about the exchange and family care.
Thanks.
Looks like it has improved quite a bit over the years.
They have one on Moffett Field that’s the only one for hundreds of miles. They’re closing it next year along with a whole bunch more. Only service members and a handful of civilians who work in certain departments can shop there. I wanna go with my neighbor one day to check it out before they close it (he’s enlisted). I’ve heard it’s significantly cheaper than Safeway, et al.
It certainly can be cheaper than other groceries. The beef is cheaper but its also a lower grade beef than what is sold in most grocers. Usda choice instead of prime, lowers costs but tbf technically isnt a direct competition with Safeway etc. There are some items you can certainly get cheaper but others are more, toiletries and such are usually close if not more at the commissaries
No. You can get access to this. It’s as simple as joining the armed forces. Which I’m guessing you’re not cut out for.
And they’re not “the elite”. They’re regular people like
you andme. The only difference is they’re willing to die for your right to express feelings like this
