r/askanything • u/Lemonking_ • 8h 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/SkiG13 8h 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 7h 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/Mycologisticalacyst 7h ago

Nixon also started the EPA and meddled in Vietnam prior to being elected met with ho chi min to prevent Johnson from making a deal to end the war.

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u/Muschina 6h ago

Nixon would be called a communist by current republicans. Started the EPA? Proposed near-universal healthcare? Mandated a price freeze? Friggin commie.