4 ms·

I live in a predominantly right-leaning area and know a lot of people who are against universal healthcare. I've talked with a lot of them about it, and every s

I live in a predominantly right-leaning area and know a lot of people who are against universal healthcare. I've talked with a lot of them about it, and every single person would be in favor of it if there was a magical guarantee the money would actually be spent properly and not corruptly misallocated. But the track record is so poor, and there is such little transparency, that they have no trust whatsoever. I can hardly fault them. And the left's argument of "give us more money, we promise to get it right this time" is hardly compelling. Obviously, accusing people on the right of being ok with others dying in the street doesn't help matters.

j_walter 5y ago
This is exactly right. Pretty much anytime the government takes anything over or has a new program...it's a shit show from the beginning. See "Cover Oregon" for a waste of a few hundred million dollars...see "Pandemic Unemployment Fraud" for what is probably a hundred billion...see "PPP program" for what is continuously being found as having tons of fraud...see "Oregon Unemployment still programmed in COBOL and can't adjust the waiting period" for non-financial incompetence. If any area in government could run efficiently and we saw evidence of that...it would be a lot easier to convince everyone that things like universal healthcare would be a good idea.
- chrononaut 5y ago
  I am not certain the point you are making. Are you saying you believe that there are no programs in existence, which are government-run, that are not "shit shows" ?
  - oceanplexian 5y ago
    There are some programs out there that are OK, but I think the gist of the problem is you are missing out on free market forces like price discovery, private equity, and are manipulating risk so anything the government touches ends up becoming less efficient and built with different constraints. Of course, there are times when efficiency is not the thing we’re optimizing for. The Space Program is an example of a pretty great government program; there was no profit or benefit to private space travel in the 1950s and 60s so the government had to subsidize it, but now that we are starting to see private business catch up, the best thing to do is get government out of the way. This is not all that different during the Age of Discovery where kings and queens subsidized trans-oceanic travel. IMHO government should only exist to fix free market deficiencies (Monopolies, unfair competition, fledgling industries, lack of players). Not to take over a market and try to dictate it from the top down. Ultimately the goal should be that all people make enough of a wage to afford healthcare and let the market handle it. And still have a safety net for those who fall through the cracks, but the safety net should never be the goal.
- smolder 5y ago
  It's ironic that many of the people I know who have a right leaning politics and a hatred of government waste are also working in sectors that get fat off government waste.
ABeeSea 5y ago
>But the track record is poor, and there is such little transparency What exactly are you talking about? Don’t republicans have a 40+ year strategy of “starve the beast” to purposely make government services worse specifically to build this distrust?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kstrauser 5y ago
Wait until those same people find out how private health insurance works. It's not fair to hate on public healthcare in a vacuum without comparing it to the horrendous private system we have now. Then it doesn't look very bad, corrupt, or opaque at all.
newacct583 5y ago
> But the track record is so poor, and there is such little transparency, that they have no trust whatsoever. The track record of... Medicare? It's one of the most popular programs in government! What you've done is just aborb spin. It's true that these people don't trust "The Government" to provide health care, because their thought leaders (and peers like you) keep telling them that. But then they go and enroll in Medicare anyway, and it pays for their care, and because nothing breaks and it's never in the news they don't even think about it. At some point you'd think the truth would break through, but it just doesn't seem to be happening. Literally every health care system sucks for someone, it's a complicated problem. But everywhere, both within and outside the US, the systems that work BEST are government-run.
- zdragnar 5y ago
  There is no alternative to Medicare given the risk profile for the elderly. It has high approval because there is no other option. It is also not universally accepted- this is only anecdotal, of course, but I had a doctor tell me he didnt accept it because the rates for some procedures worked out to be below the state's hourly minimum wage. Perhaps a better example would be the VA- government run hospitals and coverage that is perenially in the news for some new corruption or incompetence scandal, and a very very hit or miss reputation.
  - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
    So if we get rid of Medicare, do you think private insurance would step into the gap and the elderly would then have better health care?
    - zdragnar 5y ago
      Sorry, I thought I was clear that the risk profile of the elderly precluded private insurance as being an option. The elderly would get better care if more hospitals and doctors accepted it; there are several ways to achieve this with, I suspect, mixed results.
  - newacct583 5y ago
refurb 5y ago
I’ve noticed this as a major driver too. San Francisco has a per capita city+county budget that is almost 2x the typical. Yes every election is “we just need another $300M for this” and “our bond proposal to fund X”. But next year not much changed and they are asking for more again.

j_walter 5y ago

This is exactly right. Pretty much anytime the government takes anything over or has a new program...it's a shit show from the beginning. See "Cover Oregon" for a waste of a few hundred million dollars...see "Pandemic Unemployment Fraud" for what is probably a hundred billion...see "PPP program" for what is continuously being found as having tons of fraud...see "Oregon Unemployment still programmed in COBOL and can't adjust the waiting period" for non-financial incompetence. If any area in government could run efficiently and we saw evidence of that...it would be a lot easier to convince everyone that things like universal healthcare would be a good idea.

chrononaut 5y ago
I am not certain the point you are making. Are you saying you believe that there are no programs in existence, which are government-run, that are not "shit shows" ?
- oceanplexian 5y ago
  There are some programs out there that are OK, but I think the gist of the problem is you are missing out on free market forces like price discovery, private equity, and are manipulating risk so anything the government touches ends up becoming less efficient and built with different constraints. Of course, there are times when efficiency is not the thing we’re optimizing for. The Space Program is an example of a pretty great government program; there was no profit or benefit to private space travel in the 1950s and 60s so the government had to subsidize it, but now that we are starting to see private business catch up, the best thing to do is get government out of the way. This is not all that different during the Age of Discovery where kings and queens subsidized trans-oceanic travel. IMHO government should only exist to fix free market deficiencies (Monopolies, unfair competition, fledgling industries, lack of players). Not to take over a market and try to dictate it from the top down. Ultimately the goal should be that all people make enough of a wage to afford healthcare and let the market handle it. And still have a safety net for those who fall through the cracks, but the safety net should never be the goal.
smolder 5y ago
It's ironic that many of the people I know who have a right leaning politics and a hatred of government waste are also working in sectors that get fat off government waste.

ABeeSea 5y ago

>But the track record is poor, and there is such little transparency What exactly are you talking about? Don’t republicans have a 40+ year strategy of “starve the beast” to purposely make government services worse specifically to build this distrust?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

kstrauser 5y ago

Wait until those same people find out how private health insurance works. It's not fair to hate on public healthcare in a vacuum without comparing it to the horrendous private system we have now. Then it doesn't look very bad, corrupt, or opaque at all.

newacct583 5y ago

> But the track record is so poor, and there is such little transparency, that they have no trust whatsoever. The track record of... Medicare? It's one of the most popular programs in government! What you've done is just aborb spin. It's true that these people don't trust "The Government" to provide health care, because their thought leaders (and peers like you) keep telling them that. But then they go and enroll in Medicare anyway, and it pays for their care, and because nothing breaks and it's never in the news they don't even think about it. At some point you'd think the truth would break through, but it just doesn't seem to be happening. Literally every health care system sucks for someone, it's a complicated problem. But everywhere, both within and outside the US, the systems that work BEST are government-run.

zdragnar 5y ago
There is no alternative to Medicare given the risk profile for the elderly. It has high approval because there is no other option. It is also not universally accepted- this is only anecdotal, of course, but I had a doctor tell me he didnt accept it because the rates for some procedures worked out to be below the state's hourly minimum wage. Perhaps a better example would be the VA- government run hospitals and coverage that is perenially in the news for some new corruption or incompetence scandal, and a very very hit or miss reputation.
- amanaplanacanal 5y ago
  So if we get rid of Medicare, do you think private insurance would step into the gap and the elderly would then have better health care?
  - zdragnar 5y ago
    Sorry, I thought I was clear that the risk profile of the elderly precluded private insurance as being an option. The elderly would get better care if more hospitals and doctors accepted it; there are several ways to achieve this with, I suspect, mixed results.
- newacct583 5y ago

refurb 5y ago

I’ve noticed this as a major driver too. San Francisco has a per capita city+county budget that is almost 2x the typical. Yes every election is “we just need another $300M for this” and “our bond proposal to fund X”. But next year not much changed and they are asking for more again.