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What depresses me the most about this situation is the callous, unempathetic disregard a significant portion of the population has for everyone not like them. "

by jmyeet 4y ago

What depresses me the most about this situation is the callous, unempathetic disregard a significant portion of the population has for everyone not like them. "Just get a good paying job with health insurance" is not and should not be the basis for a health care policy. Americans are profoundly selfish and that's getting harder and harder to ignore. Many will defend such practices in the name of "freedom". "Freedom" will often be an integral part of their identity. The sad truth is that these people seem so desperate for someone telling them what to do. Supporters of universal access to health care simply want people not to be denied life-saving or life-changing medical care and not to be bankrupted by that. That's literally it. Yet such people are so often demonized as "socialists" or "communists". The Bezoses and Buffetts of the world has so successfully propagandized and manipulated these people, choosing billionaires having a little bit more money over people literally dying in the streets. I really do worry this country will be lost to white Christian fascism in the not too distant future.

oceanplexian 4y ago
> What depresses me the most about this situation is the callous, unempathetic disregard a significant portion of the population has for everyone not like them. "Just get a good paying job with health insurance" is not and should not be the basis for a health care policy. The problem is this is a straw-man argument. We can agree that healthcare costs are too high, and have empathy for people who are being screwed over, but not agree that massive government intervention is a reasonable solution to the problem. In fact, there is an argument to be made that the only reason healthcare is expensive in the US is because of lawmakers failure to account for the second-order effects of their decisions (e.g. EMTALA). In the early 90s you could buy decent health insurance for less than the cost of Cable TV. Unfortunately, the oft-repeated "solution" to the current crisis always involves forcibly taking tax dollars, and then directly funneling them into one of the most dysfunctional and corrupt institutions of all time (Healthcare), then lying to voters and telling them that doing so would magically turn the USA into Sweden or something. The people who don't support a public option are so exhausted making these arguments that they will tell you "It's socialism" and walk away from the conversation.
- jmyeet 4y ago
  This is a borderline bad faith argument because the US stands alone as pretty much the only developed nation without universal health care [1] while simultaneously throwing our hands up in the air saying there's nothing we can do. And that's the problem. Insulin as just one example is spectacularly expensive in the US [2] for absolutely no good reason and the only way this is allowed to happen is that the Federal government has been successfully lobbied to not negotiate pricing AND to disallow the importation of the exact same medication from other countries. [1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/heres-a-map-of-the-countries-that-provide-universal-health-care-americas-still-not-on-it/259153/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/he... [2]: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-insulin-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-i...
  - defterGoose 4y ago
    > AND to disallow the importation of the exact same medication from other countries. In other words, "free markets" only and exactly when it benefits the owners of American corporations. And please don't throw some stupid safety and efficacy arguments this way. Pretty sure people in other countries don't like buying tainted drugs either.
- avgDev 4y ago
  In the early 90s housing was much cheaper, so were cars and everything else. I would love to see some evidence that US policy has caused the skyrocketing medical bills. US already spends THE MOST tax money on healthcare even though it doesn't offer healthcare like ALL the other 1st world nations.

by jmyeet 4y ago

oceanplexian 4y ago

> What depresses me the most about this situation is the callous, unempathetic disregard a significant portion of the population has for everyone not like them. "Just get a good paying job with health insurance" is not and should not be the basis for a health care policy. The problem is this is a straw-man argument. We can agree that healthcare costs are too high, and have empathy for people who are being screwed over, but not agree that massive government intervention is a reasonable solution to the problem. In fact, there is an argument to be made that the only reason healthcare is expensive in the US is because of lawmakers failure to account for the second-order effects of their decisions (e.g. EMTALA). In the early 90s you could buy decent health insurance for less than the cost of Cable TV. Unfortunately, the oft-repeated "solution" to the current crisis always involves forcibly taking tax dollars, and then directly funneling them into one of the most dysfunctional and corrupt institutions of all time (Healthcare), then lying to voters and telling them that doing so would magically turn the USA into Sweden or something. The people who don't support a public option are so exhausted making these arguments that they will tell you "It's socialism" and walk away from the conversation.

jmyeet 4y ago
This is a borderline bad faith argument because the US stands alone as pretty much the only developed nation without universal health care [1] while simultaneously throwing our hands up in the air saying there's nothing we can do. And that's the problem. Insulin as just one example is spectacularly expensive in the US [2] for absolutely no good reason and the only way this is allowed to happen is that the Federal government has been successfully lobbied to not negotiate pricing AND to disallow the importation of the exact same medication from other countries. [1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/heres-a-map-of-the-countries-that-provide-universal-health-care-americas-still-not-on-it/259153/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/he... [2]: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-insulin-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-i...
- defterGoose 4y ago
  > AND to disallow the importation of the exact same medication from other countries. In other words, "free markets" only and exactly when it benefits the owners of American corporations. And please don't throw some stupid safety and efficacy arguments this way. Pretty sure people in other countries don't like buying tainted drugs either.
avgDev 4y ago
In the early 90s housing was much cheaper, so were cars and everything else. I would love to see some evidence that US policy has caused the skyrocketing medical bills. US already spends THE MOST tax money on healthcare even though it doesn't offer healthcare like ALL the other 1st world nations.