why are many american obsessed over maintainign the illusion of choice in healthcare?

[Cepheus Ace]

There is no such things as choice when it comes to healthcare unless you  actually want to die. You get sick, heart attack, run over by a truck etc a persons only priority is to get healthcare. You are not buying a car, fridge, furniture or a movie ticket.
Having health insurance that doesn't cover everything means you're choices are whatever the insurance company decides since their ability to make a profit depends on denying coverage and avoiding payouts

Food, water, clothing, shelter, safety and health are the main priority in any circumstances. Freedom and liberty are only a option you can afford to care about when the more important needs are met. If you're too busy taking care of yourself and your loved ones then your not gonna have the luxury to care for anything else

I just don't get the nonsensical opposition to universal healthcare, is it indoctrination? is it stupidity? or a general lack of even the most basic education?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

There is no such things as choice when it comes to healthcare unless you  actually want to die. You get sick, heart attack, run over by a truck etc a persons only priority is to get healthcare. You are not buying a car, fridge, furniture or a movie ticket.
Having health insurance that doesn't cover everything means you're choices are whatever the insurance company decides since their ability to make a profit depends on denying coverage and avoiding payouts

Food, water, clothing, shelter, safety and health are the main priority in any circumstances. Freedom and liberty are only a option you can afford to care about when the more important needs are met. If you're too busy taking care of yourself and your loved ones then your not gonna have the luxury to care for anything else

I just don't get the nonsensical opposition to universal healthcare, is it indoctrination? is it stupidity? or a general lack of even the most basic education?

I think you nailed it - it's largely a question of indoctrination, a Cold War holdover.  For decades, USians were taught that social programmes = socialism = communism = totalitarianism.  Therefore, using general revenue to make sure that sick people get healthcare leads more or less directly to jack-booted thugs, gulags and purges.

Opponents of universal health care aren't stupid, they're cruelly calculating.  They've done an outstanding job of pointing up the failures of UHC (and there have been some) while ignoring or misrepresenting the successes and benefits.

Boru

[Aegon]

There is no such things as choice when it comes to healthcare unless you  actually want to die. You get sick, heart attack, run over by a truck etc a persons only priority is to get healthcare. You are not buying a car, fridge, furniture or a movie ticket.
Having health insurance that doesn't cover everything means you're choices are whatever the insurance company decides since their ability to make a profit depends on denying coverage and avoiding payouts

Food, water, clothing, shelter, safety and health are the main priority in any circumstances. Freedom and liberty are only a option you can afford to care about when the more important needs are met. If you're too busy taking care of yourself and your loved ones then your not gonna have the luxury to care for anything else

I just don't get the nonsensical opposition to universal healthcare, is it indoctrination? is it stupidity? or a general lack of even the most basic education?

The government stepping in and taking away your privately funded health care plan and replacing it with its own, government plan sounds like a nightmare for most Americans. We're too libertarian for something like that. That's why it polls so poorly among anyone who isn't a staunch progressive.

There are also plenty of legitimate hurdles between where we are now and single-payer that aren't just Republican scare tactics.

[Anomalocaris]

There is no such things as choice when it comes to healthcare unless you  actually want to die. You get sick, heart attack, run over by a truck etc a persons only priority is to get healthcare. You are not buying a car, fridge, furniture or a movie ticket.
Having health insurance that doesn't cover everything means you're choices are whatever the insurance company decides since their ability to make a profit depends on denying coverage and avoiding payouts

Food, water, clothing, shelter, safety and health are the main priority in any circumstances. Freedom and liberty are only a option you can afford to care about when the more important needs are met. If you're too busy taking care of yourself and your loved ones then your not gonna have the luxury to care for anything else

I just don't get the nonsensical opposition to universal healthcare, is it indoctrination? is it stupidity? or a general lack of even the most basic education?

I think you nailed it - it's largely a question of indoctrination, a Cold War holdover.  For decades, USians were taught that social programmes = socialism = communism = totalitarianism.  Therefore, using general revenue to make sure that sick people get healthcare leads more or less directly to jack-booted thugs, gulags and purges.

Opponents of universal health care aren't stupid, they're cruelly calculating.  They've done an outstanding job of pointing up the failures of UHC (and there have been some) while ignoring or misrepresenting the successes and benefits.

Boru

I don’t think it is a cold war holdover.   Rather, it is reversion to a more nature state that would have existed without cold war.


Communism from even before WWII was born out of and focused a light on the consequences of the excesses of capitalism.  It's presence in Soviet Russia made revolutionary changes elsewhere seem both a plausible and potentially desirable alternative to the excess of capitalism.   The fear of such an outcome made American political and establishment more accepting of such public and social programs as would take some wind out of the sails of communist Propaganda.

The weakness of Soviet Union in the late 1980s and the fall of communism in the Soviet Block at the end of the decade gave American capitalism renewed confidence and reduced ots willingness to compromise in order to keep abreast and ahead of the appeal of communism.  What you are seeing is a process of reversion of American capitalism to what it would have evolve towards when unconstrainted by the need to use both carrot as well as stick to tamp down the social appeals of socialism or communism.

social programs =/= socialism =/= communism =/= totalitarianism were the view capitalist elite were willing to accommodate in order to stave off the credible threat of radical left wing revolution.

social programs = socialism = communism = totalitarianism is the view natural to capitalist elite who fear no existential danger from credible threat of radical left revolution.

[LastPoet]

The US politics is dichotomic thats a sure assertion. Taking from Portuguese politics, having many parties seems to make some balance.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I think you nailed it - it's largely a question of indoctrination, a Cold War holdover.  For decades, USians were taught that social programmes = socialism = communism = totalitarianism.  Therefore, using general revenue to make sure that sick people get healthcare leads more or less directly to jack-booted thugs, gulags and purges.

Opponents of universal health care aren't stupid, they're cruelly calculating.  They've done an outstanding job of pointing up the failures of UHC (and there have been some) while ignoring or misrepresenting the successes and benefits.

Boru

I don’t think it is a cold war holdover.   Rather, it is reversion to a more nature state that would have existed without cold war.


Communism from even before WWII was born out of and focused a light on the consequences of the excesses of capitalism.  It's presence in Soviet Russia made revolutionary changes elsewhere seem both a plausible and potentially desirable alternative to the excess of capitalism.   The fear of such an outcome made American political and establishment more accepting of such public and social programs as would take some wind out of the sails of communist Propaganda.

The weakness of Soviet Union in the late 1980s and the fall of communism in the Soviet Block at the end of the decade gave American capitalism renewed confidence and reduced ots willingness to compromise in order to keep abreast and ahead of the appeal of communism.  What you are seeing is a process of reversion of American capitalism to what it would have evolve towards when unconstrainted by the need to use both carrot as well as stick to tamp down the social appeals of socialism or communism.

social programs =/= socialism =/= communism =/= totalitarianism were the view capitalist elite were willing to accommodate in order to stave off the credible threat of radical left wing revolution.

social programs = socialism = communism = totalitarianism is the view natural to capitalist elite who fear no existential danger from credible threat of radical left revolution.

Then why is the constant hue and cry against UHC almost always framed in terms of 'This is socialism'?

Boru

[Cepheus Ace]

I think you nailed it - it's largely a question of indoctrination, a Cold War holdover.  For decades, USians were taught that social programmes = socialism = communism = totalitarianism.  Therefore, using general revenue to make sure that sick people get healthcare leads more or less directly to jack-booted thugs, gulags and purges.

Opponents of universal health care aren't stupid, they're cruelly calculating.  They've done an outstanding job of pointing up the failures of UHC (and there have been some) while ignoring or misrepresenting the successes and benefits.

Boru

I don’t think it is a cold war holdover.   Rather, it is reversion to a more nature state that would have existed without cold war.


Communism from even before WWII was born out of and focused a light on the consequences of the excesses of capitalism.  It's presence in Soviet Russia made revolutionary changes elsewhere seem both a plausible and potentially desirable alternative to the excess of capitalism.   The fear of such an outcome made American political and establishment more accepting of such public and social programs as would take some wind out of the sails of communist Propaganda.

The weakness of Soviet Union in the late 1980s and the fall of communism in the Soviet Block at the end of the decade gave American capitalism renewed confidence and reduced ots willingness to compromise in order to keep abreast and ahead of the appeal of communism.  What you are seeing is a process of reversion of American capitalism to what it would have evolve towards when unconstrainted by the need to use both carrot as well as stick to tamp down the social appeals of socialism or communism.

social programs =/= socialism =/= communism =/= totalitarianism were the view capitalist elite were willing to accommodate in order to stave off the credible threat of radical left wing revolution.

social programs = socialism = communism = totalitarianism is the view natural to capitalist elite who fear no existential danger from credible threat of radical left revolution.

I find the Soviet point interesting because when the revolution happened and the king was overthrown, the new govt decided to take the land oft he rich and distribute it to the poor,in fact a lot of what they did was radically different than is depicted in the media

the problem was that after the revolution a certain group nations to the west including the US decided to attack the new Russian state. They barely succeeded in stopping the west but because of it they were forced to prioritize spending resources on national defense and state control over their previous goals of spending no consumer good and products that the masses needed which led to the rise of those like Stalin who turned the young state towards authoritarianism, militarism with the view that the state is supreme and citizens were only resources for the state which is quite the opposite of what Karl Marx had in mind.

now that I think about it almost all the enemies the US has has been created in some part due to the US sticking its ugly nose where it doesn't belong. When the great depression hit the US took back the money they loan to the defeated Germany which caused their already devastated economy to collapse making it easier for extremist to gain popular support.

I've read about the totalitarianism argument made for Social security, medicare and medicaid when they were first proposed yet all that happened was that people saw improvements in their standard of living

[Anomalocaris]

I don’t think it is a cold war holdover.   Rather, it is reversion to a more nature state that would have existed without cold war.


Communism from even before WWII was born out of and focused a light on the consequences of the excesses of capitalism.  It's presence in Soviet Russia made revolutionary changes elsewhere seem both a plausible and potentially desirable alternative to the excess of capitalism.   The fear of such an outcome made American political and establishment more accepting of such public and social programs as would take some wind out of the sails of communist Propaganda.

The weakness of Soviet Union in the late 1980s and the fall of communism in the Soviet Block at the end of the decade gave American capitalism renewed confidence and reduced ots willingness to compromise in order to keep abreast and ahead of the appeal of communism.  What you are seeing is a process of reversion of American capitalism to what it would have evolve towards when unconstrainted by the need to use both carrot as well as stick to tamp down the social appeals of socialism or communism.

social programs =/= socialism =/= communism =/= totalitarianism were the view capitalist elite were willing to accommodate in order to stave off the credible threat of radical left wing revolution.

social programs = socialism = communism = totalitarianism is the view natural to capitalist elite who fear no existential danger from credible threat of radical left revolution.

Then why is the constant hue and cry against UHC almost always framed in terms of 'This is socialism'?

Boru

Because the word “socialism” is a emotive dog whistle curse term convenient for inciting disapproval,  like “mother fucker”.   In this useable it doesn’t convey any precise meaning susceptible to evaluation.    So just as with the word “mother fucker”, When the word socialism is invoked to incite disapproval is far more informative then the literal meaning of the word.

So did Cold War contribute to socialism become such a curse word?  Maybe.   Did Cold War cause the resistance to UHC?  No.  The resistance to UHC is natural development of laissez faire capitalism.

[EgoDeath]

I'm not opposed to universal healthcare. Have been in support of it for as long as I can remember, actually.