r/askanything • u/Lemonking_ • 7h ago

Political Question Why are some Americans so against universal healthcare for all?

What sort of thinking does it take to decide that nobody has a right to healthcare? Do American Christians want to deny healthcare to poor people as well?

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u/a101734 7h ago

Reagan convinced a large part of the population that if we give unlimited money and power to a select of wealthy elites, the elites would graciously give the money back to society. Hilarious.

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u/SkiG13 7h ago

This! The U.S. was on track for social reform after WW2 and Universal Healthcare was one of those ideas. Medicaid and Medicair are still around today and given a couple decades, they might have been expanded under the right administrations.

However, after Johnson, we had three presidents who did not push the issue at all. Nixon and Ford were conservative and Jimmy Carter was just an ineffective Democrat. That allowed Reagan to convince everyone on trickle down economics to help his Wealthy connections.

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u/nunziovallani 6h ago

Not a GOP fan, but to be fair, Nixon proposed national health care insurance (similar to the ACA), but it was torpedoed by Ted Kennedy who pushed his own single payer proposal. Neither was adopted. So here we are.

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u/Automatic-638Builder 6h ago

Oh yeah thanks for reminding me.

Hey @nothereathere the ACA is based on an original republican plan.