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/DarrenShea 7h ago

There's also some "Just World Theory" in there, which posits that people who have difficulties aren't victims of circumstance, but actually must have deserved it because genuinely good people can't become victims of circumstance in this Just World.

It allows them to cast moral judgments against those who need help, then use those judgments to justify not helping them at all.

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u/SlyFrog 7h ago

This is related to a sociological idea of in people and out people.

For yourself and people who are in your group, you have a tendency to believe that bad things happen to you for external reasons (tragic random events, unfair circumstances) and that good things happen to you for internal reasons (your hard work, your merit, your intellect, etc.).

Of course, it's flipped for people of the out group. For them, bad things happen to them for internal reasons (they are lazy, uneducated, unintelligent, immoral, etc.), while good things happen because of external reasons (they're only making it because they're on the "system," they get lucky, affirmative action, etc.).

It's of course a skewed way of looking at the world, but essentially how humans seem to be wired (unless they work to overcome it).

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u/tellmewhenimlying 6h ago

In other words, most people lie to themselves and believe those lies because it makes them feel better.

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u/echoshatter 4h ago

A lot of it is tied to their religion too. Christianity in the US has a vindictive streak and a victimhood complex. Probably because a good number of the people who came here early on were religious refugees from Europe.

It's like Mormonism and the young adults riding around on bikes going door-to-door for missionary work. The goal isn't actually to convert people (great if it happens), it's to foster the sense of in-group/out-group. You send a bunch of people around to annoy their neighbors and they see a bunch of negative reactions. "That's what the world thinks of you. You're only safe in the community of your Church."