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Another week, another study, used by "socialists" trying to re-establish long-debunked correlation of "average" life longevity to the [lack of] "free and universal / single-payer" and, obviously, the "socialism."
As usual, trying to pick and choose small samples of disparate facts to establish "correlation," let alone causation, fails even slightly more rigorous tests, and usually serves only people trying to convince themselves (time and again, with every new "study") that what they've been told "forever" and sincerely believe is true... or just used to influence younger audience, not well versed in statistics and fallacies.
This study itself immediately debunks the thesis of such "correlation" because there is big difference in longevity between the states, yet obviously, no difference between the "healthcare system" in Massachusetts's, Hawaii, Mississippi, Alabama and other states, since it's the same. So the differences or correlations are in many other variables; e.g., a lot closer to levels of education, wealth and income, diet, demographics and genetics (age, race, etc.), crime and suicides etc., and has nothing to do with the "healthcare system."
en.wikipedia.org - States ranked by median household/per capita income
Much better correlation to average lifespan in states?!
If "universal / single-payer healthcare system" were really cheaper, "true blue" states would jump on it... but apparently it's not the case, since Bernie Sanders' VT, CO and CA couldn't afford it, and there is no objective evidence that it's better anywhere else, e.g., in UK, just because some people in some of "new socialism" countries supposedly "like" their "no bills" system for which they "invisibly" pay in much higher income and sales / GST taxes.
TANSTAAFL!
en.wikipedia.org - Vermont health care reform
www.latimes.com - Single-payer healthcare meets its fate again in the face of California's massive budget deficit - LAT, 2024-05-16
www.vox.com - Colorado single-payer initiative failure - 2017-09-14
www.pacificresearch.org - What's Wrong With Single-Payer? Ask Vermont. - 2025-07-02
|------- Everywhere it's tried, universal health care leads to higher costs for taxpayers.
... Colorado can learn from Vermont - and from its own experience. In 2016, nearly 80% of Colorado voters rejected an amendment to establish universal health coverage through "ColoradoCare." To fund the program ... "state would have had to raise taxes, cut services, raise copayments, lower health care provider payments, or some combination of all to cover the difference." -------|
|-------... cost of [Colorado] Amendment 69 was estimated at $36 billion per year, more than the entire state budget. ... "An insurance card doesn't necessarily guarantee you access either" -------|
"Socialism" for many has bizarrely become a shorthand for fuzzy whatever is "not capitalism"... just as "America First" is a slogan / shorthand for fuzzy whatever MAGA's grand poohbah says is "not woke"... or "6-7!" ?
Or just like Trump who, once convinced of something, keeps repeating it despite the facts showing exactly the opposite.
No worries, another study will come along soon, for same people to mangle selective statistics to "prove" whatever they believe.
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Jeffrey Epstein On His Majesty Putin's Secret Service :
www.thetimes.com - Jeffrey Epstein took a leaf from Vladimir Putin's playbook
Amassing embarrassing photos and damaging information was strikingly similar to Russian kompromat operations - 2026-02-06
|------- Polish, French and British intelligence agencies are scrambling to establish whether this was, indeed, the "world's largest honeytrap operation": how much dirt Epstein amassed on whom, whether he did so for Moscow's benefit, what that material may have been used for and how much profit he extracted from his many Russian connections.
There are grubby Russian fingerprints all over the Epstein files, which contain 1,056 mentions of Putin and more than 9,000 references to Moscow: requests for flights to take escorts and models from Moscow to Paris and New York; a 2012 message to Epstein offering "2 Russian girls for you to meet, one 21, another 24. One skinny, another curvy and super cute"; a dinner companion offered to Prince Andrew with a recommendation that she was "Russian, beautiful and trustworthy". (The former prince denies any wrongdoing, as does everyone else mired in this swamp, including the Kremlin.)
... Epstein visited Russia multiple times and made arrangements to meet Putin (it is unclear if he ever did). He arranged Russian visas for others and left the bulk of his fortune, two days before his suicide, to a mysterious 36-year-old Belarusian dentist. His links to the Russian elite were many, varied and highly dubious.
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www.yahoo.com - Epstein's Russia connections, explained - 2026-02-05
dossier.center - Jeffrey Epstein's Russian Connection: Billionaire's ties with FSB Academy graduate revealed - 2026-02-14
unherd.com - Russia loves the Epstein files Nationalists delight in Western debauchery - 2026-02-04
|------- The honeypot approach is still used because it's blunt but effective. It uses kompromat sometimes in exotic, outrageous forms, but just as often in banal, almost bureaucratic ways that resemble those of the Soviet era. ...
Russia does not primarily seek to attack the West by surgically extracting targeted information, as traditional espionage would. Instead, it seeks to embarrass, humiliate, and degrade Western societies into destroying themselves by widening existing political fissures and disagreements and watching as a story-hungry media and viral social media storms do the hard work.
From Moscow's perspective, it doesn't matter so much whether the latest poisonous claims in the Epstein files are true. Even if the most sensational claims about who is (or who isn't) a Russian agent collapse under scrutiny, the story itself will please Putin immensely. It will fuel suspicion that, regardless of their political orientation, the rich and powerful in the West can commit moral aberrations with impunity, and that institutions will shield them from consequence, instead of investigating them.
...
Dr. Ian Garner is assistant professor of totalitarian studies at the Pilecki Institute in Warsaw. His latest book is Z Generation: Russia's Fascist Youth
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Epstein was collecting compromat for Russian FSB and himself.
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