7 ms·

None of the responses to your question seem to hit at what I believe the source: racism. Single payer has met resistance from the right because people have this

None of the responses to your question seem to hit at what I believe the source: racism. Single payer has met resistance from the right because people have this misguided notion that they will have to pay for "other peoples mistakes", which is just dogwhistle.

guitarbill 7y ago
There's also the fact that while it's going swimmingly (job, healthy, etc), it doesn't seem so bad, so there's little incentive to change it... until it goes wrong, at which point you're too preoccupied to change anything. At least that's how it seems to me, and why for some people on the left, healthcare isn't the most important issue to tackle. Having humans die in agony or poverty is terrible, but having it happen to your fellow countrymen is unforgivable.
- icebraining 7y ago
  It seems pretty bad while it's going swimmingly too, since people pay through the nose (in both insurance and taxes) to be covered: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#item-relative-size-wealth-u-s-spends-disproportionate-amount-health https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...
marsrover 7y ago
It's not racism, it's classism.
- kbenson 7y ago
  I think this is correct. If we accept that stress causes or exacerbates mental health issues, and if we accept that money can reduce stress to a degree, then it makes sense that the poor will have more mental health issues, and it's one more thing that the wealthy can see that appears to be fundamentally different in outlook or resilience between themselves and the poor, confirming the narrative that it's really their exceptionalism that is responsible for their current situation, and not luck or inherited wealth.[1] Yet another differentiator that prevents empathy. 1: That's not to say there aren't exceptional people that are wealthy, just that being exceptional is not a prerequisite to being wealthy, or even becoming wealthy (but I'm sure it helps in that case).
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  So how does that explain the poor people on the right who don't want to change the situation in the way the left wants are what?
  - danans 7y ago
    Because among people's worst traits is the pleasure in knowing someone is worse off than you, especially if they are from an identifiable group you already dislike. Your life might be miserable due to poverty, but you might still view that as a preferable situation compared to another even poorer group getting the same universal benefit as you, even if that universal benefit would make both of you better off.
    - Frondo 7y ago
      This is also the strategy that white former slave owners used to disrupt a more equitable reconstruction in the South after the civil war. They took all the poor white folks who were feeling a certain class alliance with the former slaves and said, "look, we know you're dirt poor, but at least you're not like those people." And created the race divide that's still, of course, prevalent in the US.
      - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
        Sure the wealthy fostered those feelings but I think the fact that a war was just waged on their land and lead to their economy being upended and blacks were the only ones who seemed to benefit probably had something to do with it. White southerners weren't going to instantly give up all the beliefs that they used to justify slavery just because they lost a war.
      - Frondo 7y ago
        For anyone who'd like to read more, W.E.B. DuBois was the first person to write about it, and this is a nice little jumping-off point: https://psmag.com/social-justice/taking-freedom-capitalism-democracy-and-du-bois https://psmag.com/social-justice/taking-freedom-capitalism-d...
  - 7y ago
- vkou 7y ago
  Race and class in most of America is deeply intertwined.
  - asdff 7y ago
    And it really shouldn't be. A poor white supremacist and a poor minority have a lot more in common than they would like to admit, and the rampant political rhetoric surrounding race is designed to keep the lower classes in constant conflict, fragmented, and in the case of poor republicans, reliably voting against their own economic interests.
betenoire 7y ago
There are plenty of reasonable "mistakes" people make; smoking, diet, exercise, alcohol, idiocy, stunts, etc, without having play the racist card. Lots of people don't want to pay for problems they don't have control or influence over. You don't have to be racist, just a bit myopic.
- dclusin 7y ago
  Insurance premiums rise to incorporate the costs of these mistakes. We're already paying for other peoples mistakes, plus a healthy profit for a private corporation.
- minikites 7y ago
  >diet Segregation and redlining have led to people of color living in marginalized communities in "food deserts" where there are few to no fresh food options, so people that live there (who are too money-poor or time-poor to travel for groceries) have to rely on processed and shelf stable food, leading to a very poor diet and the health problems associated with it. Just because the immediate observation isn't related to racism doesn't mean the root problem isn't racism.
- asdff 7y ago
  The whole insurance system is that your monthly premium is paying for someone else's treatment. Universal healthcare is just a larger insurance pool that brings costs down for everyone in it.
  - betenoire 7y ago
    Oh, I agree 100%. I just get tired of bad faith racism interpretations.
fromthestart 7y ago
Way to paint with an absurdly broad stereotypical brush with absolutely no substantiation. How about small government? Maybe people are worried about turning healthcare in the U.S. into even more of a dysfunctional bureaucratic nightmare like the current VA? What about ideals like self sufficiency? Avoiding centralization of power? Wanting power over one's healthcare and the choice to go without? No, much easier to dismiss 50% of the population as "racists" without even attempting to understand that they may have perfectly reasonable values that are contrary to your own. Ironic that your own comment is a racist stereotype.
- asveikau 7y ago
  > How about small government? A lot of the small government rhetoric in the present day United States is actually rooted in racism. Google Lee Atwater's n-word quote for a 1980s GOP strategist's perspective. To summarize: overt racism becomes unpopular with some of the electorate so they come up with coded language about small government and taxation to appeal to racists.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    Well since small government is apparently racist I'll just pack up my "the government has no business telling you what not to smoke" rhetoric and leave. I know this might be hard to believe but some people actually believe that all of society would benefit from less government involvement in all manner of things. Calling all that racist looks like you're just trying to find an excuse to dismiss it without having to make an argument for why it won't work.
    - asveikau 7y ago
      Some emphasis added: Me: A lot of the ... rhetoric You: Calling all that racist By pointing out this, I don't believe I called the views themselves, nor any specific adherent to the viewpoint, let alone 100% of them, racist. Just that "a lot" of the rhetoric comes from this. Which it does. Meanwhile, did you listen to the Lee Atwater clip? Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT2fsv7xt4E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT2fsv7xt4E This aligns pretty well with the rise of Reagan (for whom Atwater worked) and the late 20th century to present wave of "small government" politicians who somehow, shockingly, seem to rack up massive debts without a care when they are in power. Lastly, > you're just trying to find an excuse to dismiss it without having to make an argument for why it won't work. Health care is the perfect such argument, actually. Look at the rest of the developed world, or even something low overhead like Medicare [which doesn't need massive advertising budgets or, say, thousands of redundant billing companies], and tell me the US private sector does a better job.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
will4274 7y ago
Yes. Being against anything on the Democratic Party platform is racist. You got it. If it isn't obviously racist, it's a "dog whistle." It isn't possible that anybody else could disagree with me for reasons that are fair and well reasoned because they see things from a different perspective.

guitarbill 7y ago

There's also the fact that while it's going swimmingly (job, healthy, etc), it doesn't seem so bad, so there's little incentive to change it... until it goes wrong, at which point you're too preoccupied to change anything. At least that's how it seems to me, and why for some people on the left, healthcare isn't the most important issue to tackle. Having humans die in agony or poverty is terrible, but having it happen to your fellow countrymen is unforgivable.

icebraining 7y ago
It seems pretty bad while it's going swimmingly too, since people pay through the nose (in both insurance and taxes) to be covered: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#item-relative-size-wealth-u-s-spends-disproportionate-amount-health https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...

marsrover 7y ago

It's not racism, it's classism.

kbenson 7y ago
I think this is correct. If we accept that stress causes or exacerbates mental health issues, and if we accept that money can reduce stress to a degree, then it makes sense that the poor will have more mental health issues, and it's one more thing that the wealthy can see that appears to be fundamentally different in outlook or resilience between themselves and the poor, confirming the narrative that it's really their exceptionalism that is responsible for their current situation, and not luck or inherited wealth.[1] Yet another differentiator that prevents empathy. 1: That's not to say there aren't exceptional people that are wealthy, just that being exceptional is not a prerequisite to being wealthy, or even becoming wealthy (but I'm sure it helps in that case).
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
So how does that explain the poor people on the right who don't want to change the situation in the way the left wants are what?
- danans 7y ago
  Because among people's worst traits is the pleasure in knowing someone is worse off than you, especially if they are from an identifiable group you already dislike. Your life might be miserable due to poverty, but you might still view that as a preferable situation compared to another even poorer group getting the same universal benefit as you, even if that universal benefit would make both of you better off.
  - Frondo 7y ago
    This is also the strategy that white former slave owners used to disrupt a more equitable reconstruction in the South after the civil war. They took all the poor white folks who were feeling a certain class alliance with the former slaves and said, "look, we know you're dirt poor, but at least you're not like those people." And created the race divide that's still, of course, prevalent in the US.
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      Sure the wealthy fostered those feelings but I think the fact that a war was just waged on their land and lead to their economy being upended and blacks were the only ones who seemed to benefit probably had something to do with it. White southerners weren't going to instantly give up all the beliefs that they used to justify slavery just because they lost a war.
    - Frondo 7y ago
      For anyone who'd like to read more, W.E.B. DuBois was the first person to write about it, and this is a nice little jumping-off point: https://psmag.com/social-justice/taking-freedom-capitalism-democracy-and-du-bois https://psmag.com/social-justice/taking-freedom-capitalism-d...
- 7y ago
vkou 7y ago
Race and class in most of America is deeply intertwined.
- asdff 7y ago
  And it really shouldn't be. A poor white supremacist and a poor minority have a lot more in common than they would like to admit, and the rampant political rhetoric surrounding race is designed to keep the lower classes in constant conflict, fragmented, and in the case of poor republicans, reliably voting against their own economic interests.

betenoire 7y ago

There are plenty of reasonable "mistakes" people make; smoking, diet, exercise, alcohol, idiocy, stunts, etc, without having play the racist card. Lots of people don't want to pay for problems they don't have control or influence over. You don't have to be racist, just a bit myopic.

dclusin 7y ago
Insurance premiums rise to incorporate the costs of these mistakes. We're already paying for other peoples mistakes, plus a healthy profit for a private corporation.
minikites 7y ago
>diet Segregation and redlining have led to people of color living in marginalized communities in "food deserts" where there are few to no fresh food options, so people that live there (who are too money-poor or time-poor to travel for groceries) have to rely on processed and shelf stable food, leading to a very poor diet and the health problems associated with it. Just because the immediate observation isn't related to racism doesn't mean the root problem isn't racism.
asdff 7y ago
The whole insurance system is that your monthly premium is paying for someone else's treatment. Universal healthcare is just a larger insurance pool that brings costs down for everyone in it.
- betenoire 7y ago
  Oh, I agree 100%. I just get tired of bad faith racism interpretations.

fromthestart 7y ago

Way to paint with an absurdly broad stereotypical brush with absolutely no substantiation. How about small government? Maybe people are worried about turning healthcare in the U.S. into even more of a dysfunctional bureaucratic nightmare like the current VA? What about ideals like self sufficiency? Avoiding centralization of power? Wanting power over one's healthcare and the choice to go without? No, much easier to dismiss 50% of the population as "racists" without even attempting to understand that they may have perfectly reasonable values that are contrary to your own. Ironic that your own comment is a racist stereotype.

asveikau 7y ago
> How about small government? A lot of the small government rhetoric in the present day United States is actually rooted in racism. Google Lee Atwater's n-word quote for a 1980s GOP strategist's perspective. To summarize: overt racism becomes unpopular with some of the electorate so they come up with coded language about small government and taxation to appeal to racists.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  Well since small government is apparently racist I'll just pack up my "the government has no business telling you what not to smoke" rhetoric and leave. I know this might be hard to believe but some people actually believe that all of society would benefit from less government involvement in all manner of things. Calling all that racist looks like you're just trying to find an excuse to dismiss it without having to make an argument for why it won't work.
  - asveikau 7y ago
    Some emphasis added: Me: A lot of the ... rhetoric You: Calling all that racist By pointing out this, I don't believe I called the views themselves, nor any specific adherent to the viewpoint, let alone 100% of them, racist. Just that "a lot" of the rhetoric comes from this. Which it does. Meanwhile, did you listen to the Lee Atwater clip? Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT2fsv7xt4E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT2fsv7xt4E This aligns pretty well with the rise of Reagan (for whom Atwater worked) and the late 20th century to present wave of "small government" politicians who somehow, shockingly, seem to rack up massive debts without a care when they are in power. Lastly, > you're just trying to find an excuse to dismiss it without having to make an argument for why it won't work. Health care is the perfect such argument, actually. Look at the rest of the developed world, or even something low overhead like Medicare [which doesn't need massive advertising budgets or, say, thousands of redundant billing companies], and tell me the US private sector does a better job.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

will4274 7y ago

Yes. Being against anything on the Democratic Party platform is racist. You got it. If it isn't obviously racist, it's a "dog whistle." It isn't possible that anybody else could disagree with me for reasons that are fair and well reasoned because they see things from a different perspective.