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Even if I put my capitalism hat on I don't understand why one would argue against socialized healthcare. You want productive workers, with the cost amortized ac

Even if I put my capitalism hat on I don't understand why one would argue against socialized healthcare. You want productive workers, with the cost amortized across the entire population, don't you? You like that your workers have roads to drive on to get to work, right? You like that there's infrastructure you can leverage for them to make sales phone calls, surely? The entire value of your business is basically leveraged on the fact that there's a national and global supply chain infrastructure amortized by taxpayers, socialized, and nationalized programs, right?

mikepurvis 4y ago
Exactly, yeah. It really is baffling how both the argument against socialized medicine and the argument for socialized road infrastructure both somehow became about freedom— one is the freedom to choose where and when and whether to get care, and the other is the freedom to go wherever you want in your personal vehicle at no cost. Or maybe it's about what you didn't pay for? Freedom is not having to have your taxes pay for someone else's surgery, but roads are a good deal as long as you drive as much as possible on them? Anyway, as a four season bike commuter and mass transit fan, it seems to me that being a slave to automobile manufacturers and oil companies and urban sprawl is the opposite of freedom, but I don't have a century of concerted propaganda on my side for that position, so most people look at me like I have three heads.
dmitrygr 4y ago
> Even if I put my capitalism hat on I don't understand why one would argue against socialized healthcare. Honest answer: because currently my family and I have access to above-average care at below-average wait times due to having money. This will go away necessarily due to math. So asking people who are lucky enough to be in this position to support socialized healthcare is tantamount to asking them to value the lives of randoms more than those of their family.
- mikepurvis 4y ago
  I get this perspective, and it's no judgment on you specifically for holding it, but from my point of view as another upper middle class person, my quality of life is also improved when my neighbours have the care they need. I don't want to have to live in a gated community so that I can shut out the lepers, and that extends to things like schools too— I want a public school system that gives every kid a decent chance of succeeding and that goes the extra mile to provide supports to those who face additional challenges at home. Even at the cost of a potential opportunity for my own kid. Most of the world is not a zero sum game: the solution to scarcity is to invest and make more of it, not to fight over the scraps. “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.” — Stephen Jay Gould
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
    > I get this perspective, and it's no judgment on you specifically for holding it I'll judge them for holding it. They want the benefits of a society, then they should support that society. Otherwise the message is that they're totally ok with having a slave labor class that drives their Uber for them and picks up their take out order for them, but fuck those people when they get sick.
    - dmitrygr 4y ago
      Yes, let me clarify: Fuck everyone and everything, if it extends the life of my family member by even a day. Judge me all you want
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
        Will do, because you're literally a sociopath.
        dmitrygr 4y ago
        If you value lives of others above yours as you claim to, why haven't you donated all your organs? You could save a dozen lives.
        AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
        That's a false dichotomy. The way you phrase it, you would gladly kill a million people to give your grandma one extra day of life.
        dmitrygr 4y ago
        A million maybe not. But surely more than one. Now we’re just haggling over numbers.
        4y ago
- komali2 4y ago
  But if you're an American, it's more likely that you actually have average healthcare at higher than average wait times at much higher than average prices, which, unless you're extraordinarily rich, means your quality of life is diminished in other ways (lower quality of housing, maybe, or, idk, you have to retire later, whatever. Less vacations. Idk). And if you're extraordinarily rich the conversation is moot: you can always fly to wherever in the world for whatever private healthcare needs you have. > This will go away necessarily due to math Above misconception of the reality of the quality of American healthcare, but also, will it though? If your government cut your military budget by 80% and spent it all on universal healthcare, what has changed about your situation? More people at the doctor so longer lines? I guess you don't think the healthcare system would be expanded to meet needs? Well I suppose that's possible, but it seems very short sighted.

mikepurvis 4y ago

Exactly, yeah. It really is baffling how both the argument against socialized medicine and the argument for socialized road infrastructure both somehow became about freedom— one is the freedom to choose where and when and whether to get care, and the other is the freedom to go wherever you want in your personal vehicle at no cost. Or maybe it's about what you didn't pay for? Freedom is not having to have your taxes pay for someone else's surgery, but roads are a good deal as long as you drive as much as possible on them? Anyway, as a four season bike commuter and mass transit fan, it seems to me that being a slave to automobile manufacturers and oil companies and urban sprawl is the opposite of freedom, but I don't have a century of concerted propaganda on my side for that position, so most people look at me like I have three heads.

dmitrygr 4y ago

> Even if I put my capitalism hat on I don't understand why one would argue against socialized healthcare. Honest answer: because currently my family and I have access to above-average care at below-average wait times due to having money. This will go away necessarily due to math. So asking people who are lucky enough to be in this position to support socialized healthcare is tantamount to asking them to value the lives of randoms more than those of their family.

mikepurvis 4y ago
I get this perspective, and it's no judgment on you specifically for holding it, but from my point of view as another upper middle class person, my quality of life is also improved when my neighbours have the care they need. I don't want to have to live in a gated community so that I can shut out the lepers, and that extends to things like schools too— I want a public school system that gives every kid a decent chance of succeeding and that goes the extra mile to provide supports to those who face additional challenges at home. Even at the cost of a potential opportunity for my own kid. Most of the world is not a zero sum game: the solution to scarcity is to invest and make more of it, not to fight over the scraps. “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.” — Stephen Jay Gould
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  > I get this perspective, and it's no judgment on you specifically for holding it I'll judge them for holding it. They want the benefits of a society, then they should support that society. Otherwise the message is that they're totally ok with having a slave labor class that drives their Uber for them and picks up their take out order for them, but fuck those people when they get sick.
  - dmitrygr 4y ago
    Yes, let me clarify: Fuck everyone and everything, if it extends the life of my family member by even a day. Judge me all you want
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
      Will do, because you're literally a sociopath.
      - dmitrygr 4y ago
        If you value lives of others above yours as you claim to, why haven't you donated all your organs? You could save a dozen lives.
        AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
        That's a false dichotomy. The way you phrase it, you would gladly kill a million people to give your grandma one extra day of life.
        dmitrygr 4y ago
        A million maybe not. But surely more than one. Now we’re just haggling over numbers.
        4y ago
komali2 4y ago
But if you're an American, it's more likely that you actually have average healthcare at higher than average wait times at much higher than average prices, which, unless you're extraordinarily rich, means your quality of life is diminished in other ways (lower quality of housing, maybe, or, idk, you have to retire later, whatever. Less vacations. Idk). And if you're extraordinarily rich the conversation is moot: you can always fly to wherever in the world for whatever private healthcare needs you have. > This will go away necessarily due to math Above misconception of the reality of the quality of American healthcare, but also, will it though? If your government cut your military budget by 80% and spent it all on universal healthcare, what has changed about your situation? More people at the doctor so longer lines? I guess you don't think the healthcare system would be expanded to meet needs? Well I suppose that's possible, but it seems very short sighted.