America's anti-healthcare attitude

[Blastfrog]

One thing that's always confused me is that a large portion of Americans strongly oppose universal healthcare, very illogically. I mean, this seems to be completely unique to America, how the hell did they come to this view?

I just don't understand it.

[Csonicgo]

Ignorance. And if not that, then it's stubborness and Social Darwinism. Some just hate that their money goes to help smeone else, even if they didn't "deserve it".

Yanks are selfish, narcissistic assholes. It's just how bad on the scale they are. I know, because I am one of them.

[DoomUK]

America is still in debate over this?

God bless our NHS.

[Csonicgo]

DoomUK said:

America is still in debate over this?

God bless our NHS.

As long as the Baby boomers and the ones they managed to infect with their myopic bullshit are still alive, yes, there will always be this debate.

[Maes]

Probably for the same reasons they systematically deliberately misidentify Social Democracy with North Korea-style "socialism". A mixture of propaganda, fears that it would taint the American Dream or destroy Freedom (not as in Free Beer nor as in Free Speech).

[Csonicgo]

Maes said:

Probably for the same reasons they systematically deliberately misidentify Social Democracy with North Korea-style "socialism". A mixture of propaganda, fears that it would taint the American Dream or destroy Freedom (not as in Free Beer nor as in Free Speech).

McCarthyism, Cold-War fears, i.e the Baby Boomers thinking the commies are knocking on the door AT ANY SECOND (and they're bringing sekret muslins)

Maes, all you need to know is this website:

http://myrightwingdad.net

This website explains through evidence alone more of the problems of America than any book could.

Oh, and just in case anyone thought we were sane:


That's from 2012.

[Blastfrog]

Is that supposed to be a Hitler mustache or an open mouth on that guy? I can't tell.

[Rayziik]

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[45th Parrallel]

I dont really care at the moment im to young for this stuff

[Maes]

Rayzik said:

I just don't want to be forced to use this "universal" healthcare, that's my only problem with it. I'd rather pay for my healthcare so I can get it when I need it and not when it becomes available.

Completely unfunded fear: even in countries where a universal public healthcare/pension system exists (except maybe Cuba and North Korea), there's also private healthcare, pension plans and life insurance, for those that can afford or prefer them.

Also, there is almost never a "one size fits all" pension/healthcare fund: e.g. Engineers have their own, farmers have their own, self-employed professionals, have their own, lawyers have their own etc. and usually belonging to a certain professional guild "forces" you to use a certain fund. Most or all of these funds have a special status: they may be individually managed and not strictly state entities, however there are laws that give them special privileges, as well as special obligations towards the State.

Perhaps an advantage of private insurance, in time of conomic crisis, is that the funds you contribute there are de-facto untouchable by the State, in case they decide to e.g. merge some funds or use them as emergency piggy banks. But in order for that to work you need a State with strong economic freedoms, which fully respect private property.


Also, due to taxation, everybody contributes a bit to publicly funded healthcare to some extent e.g. hospitals are built from the state's budget, not from the national healthcare fund, which is instead funded by workers' wages.

The only category of employees that are "forced" to use public healthcare are public employees: they don't get a choice, and it's very hard to "bail out" of it.

Of course, you can choose to eschew/forfeit contributing such funds if you prefer private healthcare, but it's unlikely to be more cost-effective, at least on the short term and for a newly employed individual, and with an economic climate that's unfriendly to long-term private initiatives, you might see your money go up in smoke if one day they simply shut down. BTW explain to me, who assures you that the insurance/healthcare/pension company you use today will still be there 40 years later?

[Aliotroph?]

Rayzik said:

I just don't want to be forced to use this "universal" healthcare, that's my only problem with it. I'd rather pay for my healthcare so I can get it when I need it and not when it becomes available.

You've been listening to more silly crap from silly fellow Americans who've never been anywhere. When you have an emergency they fix it immediately. Canadian response times on that aren't worse than yours.

When my retina detached for the second time last February I was on the operating table in an hour. They were ready to have me sooner, but someone lost the paperwork in the time it took me to move between floors of the hospital.

Now, the operation they'll have to do in order to remove the silicone they filled my eye with isn't an emergency. The wait time on that was two months from when they scheduled it, but I cancelled since it was the day after dad's funeral. I've rescheduled for the end of June.

All this was free. Curiously, the drops to keep my eye from getting infected were not free. Why they don't include medications in that coverage is beyond me. We all end up buying private plans for those kinds of things, which doesn't make any sense.

The system the USA has is laughable. Apparently few people there see the value in keeping society as a whole healthier.

[Rayziik]

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[Gez]

It's a question of predestination.

See, Luther showed that the bit about "good works" earning one a place in Paradise was Catholic bullshit. It is only through Christ, and Christ alone, that Paradise can be gotten. Then Calvin explained whether Christ will save a soul or not was foreordained at the beginning of time, so there's nothing to it. If you're Elect, you'll act virtuously because it's in your nature, and if you're Reprobate, you'll sin because it's also in your nature.

So you've got these two categories of people: the Elect (blessed by God) and the Reprobates (damned souls). It's important to tell them from one another. You wouldn't want your daughter to marry a Reprobate, would you? So, how can we tell? Simple. God favors the Elect and curses the Reprobates, so it's just a question of looking at who looks favored by God and who looks cursed.

It follows naturally that the wealthy and healthy people are Elect (and therefore innately virtuous in all they do, as they are incapable of sinning, so anything they do is necessarily not a sin) and the Reprobates are poor and sick people (who are scum of the earth and not deserving any of your pity because they are dark-hearted soulless monsters).

Universal healthcare means that the government intends to take money away from the Elect to care for the Reprobates. This is a flagrant godless violation of God's plan and it is therefore important to oppose it vigorously, as is good and pure.

[Maes]

Rayzik said:

I was just putting in that I'd rather rely on my own funds to pay for my healthcare than depend on money that comes from another place.

If it was literally "your own funds", you'd go bankrupt at the first relatively serious medical emergency (usually something involving cracked bones or a relatively prolonged hospitalization). If you were charged hospital bills in-full, they would be pretty much at the level of a 5-star hotel, on a per-day basis.

That's why some sort of healthcare fund is necessary: they take care of "multiplying the money" behind the scenes for you (unless you're some Master Capitalist and you can do it on your own and pay hospital bills straight), and may even negotiate more favorable tariffs with hospitals than you would get if dealing individually with the hospital's cashiers. If such a fund is public, it tends to be more affordable and accessible to more people, and usually has the guarantee of the State behind it. Of course, if the State itself is shitty and indebted...that's another story.

[Rayziik]

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[Maes]

Aliotroph? said:

Apparently few people there see the value in keeping society as a whole healthier.

TBQH, the global trend seems to be that health and education are no longer convenient to be offered "for free" by a country, macroeconomically: there's already too much overpopulation, unemployment etc. so really, no country has a real interest in keeping the numbers of people up or keeping them healthy (of course, that also requires a "I don't give a damn" attitude about healthcare, so that someone doesn't claim that lots of sick people increase health expenses: they WON'T be any, just like there weren't in the 18th or 19th century, and people survived anyway)

Also, no need to keep your own people educated: you can always rely on disposable immigrants trained at someone else's expense and with no demands from your state (other than a job). Enter the new "global" model.

[Violator]

Many small businesses in America are failing because they are getting taxed to death if I owned my own small business that was struggling I wouldn't want a cent of it to go towards these bums that sit on the side of the road picking their noses while I am barely making ends meet. Flame Away.

[Scripten]

Why bother flaming? You hit the nail on the head. The issue people have with business in America isn't levied toward small businesses. What we all have problems with is big business that is pulling out exponentially more money than all those bums on the side of the road from our taxes. If we actually covered all the loopholes in our tax laws, I bet you'd see enough cash flowing in to fund a single-payer healthcare alternative.

[Gez]

Small businesses and the middle class are taxed to death not to pay for healthcare, but to pay for constant tax cuts given to large corporations and the upper class.

[Scripten]

I should probably mention that I was not trying to insinuate that a national healthcare system is the reason for the taxes.

Big business, especially in the purely financial sector, is doing horrible things to this place.

[myk]

Maes said:
TBQH, the global trend seems to be that health and education are no longer convenient to be offered "for free" by a country, macroeconomically: there's already too much overpopulation, unemployment etc. so really, no country has a real interest in keeping the numbers of people up or keeping them healthy (of course, that also requires a "I don't give a damn" attitude about healthcare, so that someone doesn't claim that lots of sick people increase health expenses: they WON'T be any, just like there weren't in the 18th or 19th century, and people survived anyway)

That's more of a Western trend rather than global one, especially in Europe, fueled by Germany. Even in the US, there have been pressures in the opposite direction, regardless of the inertia against it from its history, the Republican party and the strength of its private health sector. It's not a trend in China and India (which together hold more than a third of the world population), other places in Asia, most of Latin America, and I doubt most of Africa or the Middle East. In Europe it's arguably another way to crack down on the State and the benefits and guarantees of the population so that Germany and multinationals can take over a bigger chunk of the economies of smaller European countries.

[Blastfrog]

To clarify what my original question meant, was why is this seemingly unique to the United States, and no similar anti-universal-healthcare stigmas seem to be in any other parts of the world. Why is it so exclusive to the yanks?

[lazygecko]

A self-absorbant society coupled with cold war red scare are what makes it unique compared to the rest of western society. I think the neo-conservative movement moves hand in hand with the red scare factor as well.

[Quast]

Sodaholic said:

To clarify what my original question meant, was why is this seemingly unique to the United States, and no similar anti-universal-healthcare stigmas seem to be in any other parts of the world. Why is it so exclusive to the yanks?

1. Blatant, unabashed racism towards blacks and latinos.

2. Supply side jesus as known by protestants.

It really is that simple. In truth, almost every single issue in the united states can be boiled down to these 2 things.

[AndrewB]

Sodaholic said:

One thing that's always confused me is that a large portion of Americans strongly oppose universal healthcare, very illogically. I mean, this seems to be completely unique to America, how the hell did they come to this view?

I just don't understand it.

You're using the phrases "anti-healthcare" and "strongly oppose universal healthcare" interchangeably. You're failing to identify your opponent's argument, which is that universal healthcare is worse healthcare once you aggregate all the pros and cons.

[Csonicgo]

AndrewB said:

You're using the phrases "anti-healthcare" and "strongly oppose universal healthcare" interchangeably. You're failing to identify your opponent's argument, which is that universal healthcare is worse healthcare once you aggregate all the pros and cons.

It'd be great if their "pros" and "cons" were something backed up by data and not a bunch of anecdotes about a Canadian wanting a toenail transplant or something. I know I'm being facetious but that's pretty close to the "data" you'll get from these morons, especially the ones that get their talking points from a particular oxycodone-doping fatass on the AM radio dial.

And to be honest, I bet a select few of them ARE "anti-healthcare". They don't want to admit it, but they're the worst of the social darwinists.

[Technician]

I think America's greed is a bigger factor. We have average to poor people supporting the rich to pay less taxes. Why? Because they can foresee themselves being rich one day, and they don't want to pay. Same as health care. Why should we pay for someone else? Meanwhile, they are completely unaware that a person with an above average income can break their bank account with a heart attack. Not to mention American health insurance companies can, almost, squirm out of every claim.

[chungy]

The rich tend to pay a disproportionately higher tax than average to poor people.

[Csonicgo]

chungy said:

The rich tend to pay a disproportionately higher tax than average to poor people.

If you define rich as "middle class", you might have a point, and then only if we're talking income tax. And, let's be honest, Federal Income Tax is a really shitty indicator of who's paying "more" than others. It always has been.

[geekmarine]

I feel at the end of the day, inertia is a huge factor. It seems it's incredibly easy to argue against anything new or different in this country. We, as a people, seem quick to say, "What if this new thing is worse than what we have now!?"