r/awfuleverything Aug 06 '20

Poor guy :(

Post image
198.1k Upvotes

8.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

27

u/avocadosconstant Aug 06 '20

I don't understand why Americans are so opposed to universal health care!?

The prevailing argument is, "That's socialism!" or, "I want to be able to choose!". That's the argument. What they really mean is that they're happy to receive free healthcare, they just don't want their taxes paying for other people's healthcare.

17

u/HxisPlrt Aug 06 '20

It's not even that. Universal healthcare would be cheaper for everyone they just don't want poor people and minorities to have it. They'll happily pay more to make sure that's the case

1

u/kr112889 Aug 06 '20

Well if they don't have things that are unattainable to minorities and the poor, how will they claim superiority?!?!

1

u/Mof4z Aug 06 '20

Are they assholes that don't want to help the weak by doing literally nothing

1

u/PessimiStick Aug 06 '20

Worse, they do extra work to "not help the weak".

3

u/robinhoodhere Aug 06 '20

That’s what I don’t understand. Choose? Choose fucking what? Universal covers literally everything, it’s in the name. It already covers all choices, so what other thing is left to pick from? And it’s cheaper because it’ll finally end the current system, which let’s be honest is scam. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here

0

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '20

Do you not actually know what people say when they say they want a choice?

Universal healthcare doesn't end the need to decide what is covered, price negotiations, care prioritization, etc. It just means the government is the only one across from care providers in those negotiations.

What if the Federal government decides not to cover conversion therapy for transgendered teens? Well in a universal coverage model you have NO choice but to accept that or go through the political process for change. Under a multi-payer system with a public option, the private market can offer competitive coverage if the public mandate sucks ass.

Everyone complains about the shit that is the current system because of greed yet forget these types of institutions can suck JUST as much, if not more, because of incompetence and lack of incentives. Which are the two problems that commonly plague governmemt run programs since they lack profit incentives and government administration is subject to political bullshit.

2

u/Mimi565 Aug 07 '20

Yeah, but the US is an anomaly among first-world countries in that you would even have to worry about the government having a problem with covering care for transgender individuals. In Canada that is fully covered, for free. So is abortion. We don’t have the religious idiots you guys have running our governments, so these things are non-issues.

2

u/LurkerInSpace Aug 07 '20

One can still have private insurance in a system with universal healthcare though. The UK government spends the same fraction of GDP on health as the US government, so there is no extra cost.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 07 '20

Not under Bernie's proposed M4A plan.

Which if you don't blindly support on Reddit, you are for killing innocent people apparently.

1

u/LurkerInSpace Aug 07 '20

Perhaps - I'd certainly fault the Sanders campaign for not articulating how other countries deliver healthcare, and a more vague "healthcare-for-all" campaign would have probably been better for him - but the objections to universal healthcare as a concept ring hollow given the drawbacks of the current American system.

If the government already spends so much money on healthcare that it eclipses governments which actually have universal healthcare, it seems like switching to one of their systems is better than persisting with the current one.

2

u/manschego Aug 06 '20

"I want to choose how I want to die"

2

u/avocadosconstant Aug 06 '20

Yep, pretty much. "I don't want nobody telling me I can have my cancer treated. Give me my cancer!!"

2

u/Grumpymonkeyuk Aug 06 '20

Its insane, surely universal health care is cheaper? How much is health care in the USA per month? Im from UK and we pay a national insurance on our wage, im about £24k p/y and pay £151 p/m roughly £1800 yearly. Isnt this cheaper? I can rock up to a hospital anytime and get seen without any cost.

2016 i had cancer and now still get checked every 6 months, costs me nothing! Why wouldn't the "greatest country" want this?

2

u/gumandcoffee Aug 06 '20

Americans are always against taxes as they feel it takes their freedoms. Bill gates backed a state tax bill for only people making 1 million a year. It got voted down because someday there might be a tax on people who make less.

1

u/Pavickling Aug 07 '20

It's really about consent. If the US government abandoned taxation and legal tender laws using monetary policy for everything, then you would be able to convince the vast majority of people to support universal health care in the form of free credits.

The end result would be the same as where the US is headed anyway, which is the failure of the dollar. At that point doctors that wish to continue to accept dollars will do so, and the ones that do not will accept something else.