Why be against universal healthcare?

[MoonWater]

This is a stance I have never understood. Why would anyone be against the concept of making sure everyone in the country has equal access to quality healthcare? I mean unless you run or work for a health insurance company and thus worry about losing your job, what reason could anyone have to be against it? You'd think healthcare would be considered a universal right that everyone should have access to rather than having a good chunk of the country live in constant fear of bankruptcy should they ever get sick or injured because they either can't afford insurance or the only insurance they can afford is so **** poor that it doesn't do them much good anyway. So why is it? Why is anyone against universal healthcare?

 

[Pegg]

because americans are crazy

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Selfishness.

 

[Alceste]

The fact of the matter is that most ordinary citizens in the US actually did support universal health care until the Democrats actually tried to do something about it. (FYI, Obama was elected in 2009).

 

[Alceste]

Also, speaking as someone from a more enlightened country where universal health care is an unassailable fact of life, and one who has lived in another country with similar attitudes toward health care, no matter where you live you can always count on about 30% of the population to parrot the attitudes of political conservatives no matter what they are. We can't all think for ourselves, can we? Some of us just aren't very good at it.

 

[Sunstone]

Also, speaking as someone from a more enlightened country where universal health care is an unassailable fact of life, and one who has lived in another country with similar attitudes toward health care, no matter where you live you can always count on about 30% of the population to parrot the attitudes of political conservatives no matter what they are.

Thirty percent seems about right, roughly speaking.

 

[Sunstone]

I suspect that many Americans who are against universal health care are against it either because they don't understand it, or they willfully refuse to understand it.

 

[Pegg]

I suspect that many Americans who are against universal health care are against it either because they don't understand it, or they willfully refuse to understand it.

or they are convinced it has something to do with a loss of freedom and a move into some form of communistic government

 

[Sunstone]

or they are convinced it has something to do with a loss of freedom and a move into some form of communistic government

Good point, Pegg. I think that's quite often a component of it, too.

 

[Skwim]

Ultimately, universal health care would come out of everyone's pocket. And because the very healthy, and even the just plain healthy, wouldn't need it much, they wouldn't be taking advantage of the money they put into the pot. There's would be money down the drain, so to speak.

ʞuıʍ ƃıq
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[MoonWater]

Ultimately, universal health care would come out of everyone's pocket. And because the very healthy, and even the just plain healthy, wouldn't need it much, they wouldn't be taking advantage of the money they put into the pot. There's would be money down the drain, so to speak.

ʞuıʍ ƃıq
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Is it "money down the drain" for a person to pay taxes for firefighters if they wind up never needing their services?

 

[Skwim]

Is it "money down the drain" for a person to pay taxes for firefighters if they wind up never needing their services?

Nope, cause taxes to support a community infrastructure is one thing, and universal health care quite another.

ʞuıʍ ɹǝƃƃıq
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[Pegg]

Nope, cause taxes to support a community infrastructure is one thing, and universal health care quite another.

ʞuıʍ ɹǝƃƃıq
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Is infrastructure more important then people?

 

[Falvlun]

Nope, cause taxes to support a community infrastructure is one thing, and universal health care quite another.

ʞuıʍ ɹǝƃƃıq
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I don't see why peoples' homes are considered "community infrastructure" but their bodies, their health, is not. People are what makes communities. Not houses. And if you're dead, you ain't much of a person.

 

[Pegg]

Ultimately, universal health care would come out of everyone's pocket. And because the very healthy, and even the just plain healthy, wouldn't need it much, they wouldn't be taking advantage of the money they put into the pot. There's would be money down the drain, so to speak.

ʞuıʍ ƃıq
​

healthy people can have accidents, break bones, get bitten by a dog, fall off a horse....there is more then just illness to consider.

 

[Sunstone]

Wise healthy people might consider that if they are lucky to live long, their health is bound to deteriorate.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Ultimately, universal health care would come out of everyone's pocket. And because the very healthy, and even the just plain healthy, wouldn't need it much, they wouldn't be taking advantage of the money they put into the pot. There's would be money down the drain, so to speak.

Nobody's immortal. The number that's being thrown around on ads here lately (from the Heart and Stroke Foundation, IIRC) is that the average person will spend their last 10 years in poor health.

People who are healthy now who expect to never need major medical care have no foresight.

And I disagree with the idea that universal health care "would come out of everyone's pocket." When people get free checkups and preventative care, society avoids spending orders of magnitude more money on them when minor, easily preventable things turn into major acute or chronic conditions. Hospital care is damned expensive, and keeping as many people as possible from needing hospitals in the first place is one of the best ways to keep that expense in check.

 

[InsurgoInsurgiInsurrect]

Nope, cause taxes to support a community infrastructure is one thing, and universal health care quite another.

ʞuıʍ ɹǝƃƃıq
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I am not following your argument. In the US government healthcare is far more efficient than ANY private insurance company. This is despite being hamstrung with ridiculous laws that prohibit their ability to negotiate on certain items. (Pharmaceuticals and wheelchairs for example)

Look at the cost to just process a claim comparatively.

Still some 50 million+ people have no access to government or private healthcare of any kind in the US. Thanks to President Reagan though they can still go to any old emergency room and are guaranteed life saving treatment no matter the cost. Even if it will only give them an extra 12 days of life they are guaranteed that treatment right? Universal healthcare is really already in place its just crazy expensive and highly ineffective.

The truth is Medicare is available to Americans over the age of 65 and current thought it that is not affordable and we need to raise the availability age to something like 67. In reality we need to lower the age to probably 62 to get people into more efficient health care faster and to foster competition. That is just simple arithmetic but if you want my opinion then I will say private health care insurance companies serve no purpose except as middle men who are very inefficient compared to government healthcare and who serve to peel a percentage of the money paid to hospitals and doctors to pad their pockets and provide ridiculous and undeserved bonuses for their executives. This drain on society is tolerated because the general population is not educated enough to understand how they are being robbed and the Representative politicians depend upon the companies robbing the general population blind for money to be reelected in the next campaign.

That is just my opinion which might be off base but even if so... simple math dictates that insurance companies are way more inefficient then government healthcare and yet everyone is in a hurry to hand money over to them so they can buy new yachts and laugh all the way to the bank which is also robbing them. Why?

 

[Alceste]

Ultimately, universal health care would come out of everyone's pocket. And because the very healthy, and even the just plain healthy, wouldn't need it much, they wouldn't be taking advantage of the money they put into the pot. There's would be money down the drain, so to speak.

ʞuıʍ ƃıq
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That's the silly part. Everybody needs it, eventually. None of us can ever predict how much of it we or our loved ones are going to need, but everybody is definitely going to need it.

Besides, considering how much more you folks pay for extremely limited health insurance (when you can get it) than we pay in fees and taxes to cover everybody, everywhere, for the entire cost of everything, "saving money" is a very weak argument.

 

[Sunstone]

*Wink*