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In a more sane world the Republican Party would be in favor of universal health coverage. How many potential entrepreneurs stay working at BigCorp because they

by afavour 2mo ago

In a more sane world the Republican Party would be in favor of universal health coverage. How many potential entrepreneurs stay working at BigCorp because they need the health benefits? How many small businesses are crushed by the cost of providing healthcare to their employees? It would be great for business to remove any involvement they have in personal healthcare. But I suppose they are the party of big business, not the party of business in general.

RajuChacha108 2mo ago
[flagged]
- jalapenoj 2mo ago
  [flagged]
poncho_romero 2mo ago
In what world is the Republican Party pro entrepreneur/small business enough to make these rhetorical questions meaningful?
- fhdkweig 2mo ago
  When they make campaign promises, they go to small towns and talk about "Main St" businesses. Not sure why anyone believes them at this point (for the reasons you mention), but it is what they campaign on.
  - dboreham 2mo ago
    Oh dear. They make those statements for the benefit of people who don't own small businesses, but are "low information voters".
- jvanderbot 2mo ago
  I think republicans could get behind some measure of portable health plans between employers. What they could not get behind is universal, in the sense of "everyone living in USA" health care footed by the US Government. The objection would be about centralization of health care funding and about, you know, who would get the benefits.
  - dboreham 2mo ago
    People of color?
    - jvanderbot 2mo ago
      I doubt POC would be the main issue. I do think immigration status would be front and center. They do overlap, but not entirely.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- spicymaki 2mo ago
  That wing of the Republican Party does not exist anymore, they are now centrist Democrats.
- strictnein 2mo ago
  They used to be, before Trump and the MAGA clowns destroyed the party. So prior to 2015 or so.
- afavour 2mo ago
  As a sibling comment points out, the world of… 1974 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49333468 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49333468
theappsecguy 2mo ago
The party in the pocket of BigCorp, that party...?
- 0xy 2mo ago
  The insurance companies had substantial input to the specific text of the ACA. I'm not sure how you can imply the ACA was not a BigCorp bill when BigCorp wrote it. It's also well known from leaks that the first Obama administration selected his cabinet using recommendations from Citigroup.
hilariously 2mo ago
The Republican party is not a Conservative party, its a Reactionist party of capital, so generally anything that threatens the interests of capital will be absolutely crushed.
- Helloworldboy 2mo ago
  [dead]
- thiht 2mo ago
  As a reply to Helloworldboy (sibling comment marked as dead), the US is not even in the top 10 of best countries to live in terms of quality of life. It's not even close to the top in any QoL metrics: life expectancy, child mortality, education, poverty/wealth gaps, air pollution, food quality...
etc-hosts 2mo ago
The Parties and Capital have multiple tools for disciplining Labor, health insurance tied to your employment status is one of the more effective ones.
jkestner 2mo ago
BigCorp gives money to politicians and gets to depress worker wages because they can't leave — sounds perfectly sane to tie your insurance to your employer under capitalism.
ChicagoDave 2mo ago
The original universal healthcare plans were promoted by the GOP until Hillary got involved and it became a political football.
- devilbunny 2mo ago
  … in Massachusetts. New England Republicans are not the bulk of the party, and that’s not all bad - remember, the phrase was “banned in Boston”, not “banned in Bakersfield”. Bill Clinton was a once-a-century skilled politician, but if you translated his policies without his extreme personal charisma to today it’s unlikely he would make it through the Dem primaries.
bluecalm 2mo ago
Decoupling health insurance from your job and going single payer are separate things. You can have one without the other. You can have a very healthy system with private insurers (like in Switzerland) and you can have completely dysfunctional single payer system (like in Poland and I guess many other countries). Main problems are elsewhere: doctors gatekeeping the market, lack of transparency when it comes to pricing, regulation making it impossible to compete for smaller players etc.
mikestew 2mo ago
A more sane world, you say? How about the Nixon administration, where Nixon proposes a universal healthcare system to Congress? https://kffhealthnews.org/news/nixon-proposal/ https://kffhealthnews.org/news/nixon-proposal/
cactacea 2mo ago
> In a more sane world the Republican Party would be in favor of universal health coverage. How many potential entrepreneurs stay working at BigCorp because they need the health benefits? Oh hi. That is me.
pessimizer 2mo ago
If they published the plan, it was a normal rational one without carveouts for their friends, and they started pushing specific legislation now to implement it, they'd crush the Democrats, and Trump could declare himself God-Emperor. All they'd have to do is cut a few friends (insurers) loose. They'd still even have the power of the contract to reward theoretically productive elements of the new health system in return for kickbacks, and there'd simply be more money sloshing around within government to take advantage of. They could continue to stomp the planet freely, because Americans don't care about anyone but themselves. The upper-middle class post-Obama "left" would evaporate. Give them free state college and they'd start calling Republicans the real left. Another reminder that the US government spends more per-capita on health care than every country with universal health care, and then the population pays again. One of the things usually cited to defend this waste of money is the massive excess army of people working in healthcare administration, half of whom are employed to file paperwork and the other half employed to throw it in the trash. Now that they're all soon to be replaced by AIs which will be able to simultaneously file and delete worthless paperwork at inhuman speeds, we can let go of that garbage excuse. But in a more sane world the Republican Party would simply acknowledge slavery as being a real debt owed, and stop being racist, without changing anything else. Most black people are socially conservative Christians, and it would instantly become another God-Emperor situation. Democrats haven't won whites since Kennedy; they gave them entirely up for supporting basic civil rights for black people (an own-goal for the Republican Party, started as a single-issue antislavery party) and big business. Without guaranteed black support (the only other choice black people have to Democrats is not to vote, which is quickly increasing its share), the Democrats wouldn't be a viable party at any level. Republicans are not sane, they are short-termists like everyone else. Picking out the Republicans is unfair, though. Democrats lobbied furiously and entirely dishonestly against single-payer healthcare in 2016 and 2020. They even tried to sell single-payer and its supporters as racist.
dualvariable 2mo ago
Republicans are the party of pulling up the ladder behind you. They don't give any shits about free market economics or struggling entrepreneurs. They care about protecting their own money. And it isn't about big business; that's the Democratic Party. It is about hoarding wealth and gaining more.

by afavour 2mo ago

RajuChacha108 2mo ago

[flagged]

jalapenoj 2mo ago
[flagged]

poncho_romero 2mo ago

In what world is the Republican Party pro entrepreneur/small business enough to make these rhetorical questions meaningful?

fhdkweig 2mo ago
When they make campaign promises, they go to small towns and talk about "Main St" businesses. Not sure why anyone believes them at this point (for the reasons you mention), but it is what they campaign on.
- dboreham 2mo ago
  Oh dear. They make those statements for the benefit of people who don't own small businesses, but are "low information voters".
jvanderbot 2mo ago
I think republicans could get behind some measure of portable health plans between employers. What they could not get behind is universal, in the sense of "everyone living in USA" health care footed by the US Government. The objection would be about centralization of health care funding and about, you know, who would get the benefits.
- dboreham 2mo ago
  People of color?
  - jvanderbot 2mo ago
    I doubt POC would be the main issue. I do think immigration status would be front and center. They do overlap, but not entirely.
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
spicymaki 2mo ago
That wing of the Republican Party does not exist anymore, they are now centrist Democrats.
strictnein 2mo ago
They used to be, before Trump and the MAGA clowns destroyed the party. So prior to 2015 or so.
afavour 2mo ago
As a sibling comment points out, the world of… 1974 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49333468 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49333468

theappsecguy 2mo ago

The party in the pocket of BigCorp, that party...?

0xy 2mo ago
The insurance companies had substantial input to the specific text of the ACA. I'm not sure how you can imply the ACA was not a BigCorp bill when BigCorp wrote it. It's also well known from leaks that the first Obama administration selected his cabinet using recommendations from Citigroup.

hilariously 2mo ago

The Republican party is not a Conservative party, its a Reactionist party of capital, so generally anything that threatens the interests of capital will be absolutely crushed.

Helloworldboy 2mo ago
[dead]
thiht 2mo ago
As a reply to Helloworldboy (sibling comment marked as dead), the US is not even in the top 10 of best countries to live in terms of quality of life. It's not even close to the top in any QoL metrics: life expectancy, child mortality, education, poverty/wealth gaps, air pollution, food quality...

etc-hosts 2mo ago

The Parties and Capital have multiple tools for disciplining Labor, health insurance tied to your employment status is one of the more effective ones.

jkestner 2mo ago

BigCorp gives money to politicians and gets to depress worker wages because they can't leave — sounds perfectly sane to tie your insurance to your employer under capitalism.

ChicagoDave 2mo ago

The original universal healthcare plans were promoted by the GOP until Hillary got involved and it became a political football.

devilbunny 2mo ago
… in Massachusetts. New England Republicans are not the bulk of the party, and that’s not all bad - remember, the phrase was “banned in Boston”, not “banned in Bakersfield”. Bill Clinton was a once-a-century skilled politician, but if you translated his policies without his extreme personal charisma to today it’s unlikely he would make it through the Dem primaries.

bluecalm 2mo ago

Decoupling health insurance from your job and going single payer are separate things. You can have one without the other. You can have a very healthy system with private insurers (like in Switzerland) and you can have completely dysfunctional single payer system (like in Poland and I guess many other countries). Main problems are elsewhere: doctors gatekeeping the market, lack of transparency when it comes to pricing, regulation making it impossible to compete for smaller players etc.

mikestew 2mo ago

A more sane world, you say? How about the Nixon administration, where Nixon proposes a universal healthcare system to Congress? https://kffhealthnews.org/news/nixon-proposal/ https://kffhealthnews.org/news/nixon-proposal/

cactacea 2mo ago

> In a more sane world the Republican Party would be in favor of universal health coverage. How many potential entrepreneurs stay working at BigCorp because they need the health benefits? Oh hi. That is me.

pessimizer 2mo ago

If they published the plan, it was a normal rational one without carveouts for their friends, and they started pushing specific legislation now to implement it, they'd crush the Democrats, and Trump could declare himself God-Emperor. All they'd have to do is cut a few friends (insurers) loose. They'd still even have the power of the contract to reward theoretically productive elements of the new health system in return for kickbacks, and there'd simply be more money sloshing around within government to take advantage of. They could continue to stomp the planet freely, because Americans don't care about anyone but themselves. The upper-middle class post-Obama "left" would evaporate. Give them free state college and they'd start calling Republicans the real left. Another reminder that the US government spends more per-capita on health care than every country with universal health care, and then the population pays again. One of the things usually cited to defend this waste of money is the massive excess army of people working in healthcare administration, half of whom are employed to file paperwork and the other half employed to throw it in the trash. Now that they're all soon to be replaced by AIs which will be able to simultaneously file and delete worthless paperwork at inhuman speeds, we can let go of that garbage excuse. But in a more sane world the Republican Party would simply acknowledge slavery as being a real debt owed, and stop being racist, without changing anything else. Most black people are socially conservative Christians, and it would instantly become another God-Emperor situation. Democrats haven't won whites since Kennedy; they gave them entirely up for supporting basic civil rights for black people (an own-goal for the Republican Party, started as a single-issue antislavery party) and big business. Without guaranteed black support (the only other choice black people have to Democrats is not to vote, which is quickly increasing its share), the Democrats wouldn't be a viable party at any level. Republicans are not sane, they are short-termists like everyone else. Picking out the Republicans is unfair, though. Democrats lobbied furiously and entirely dishonestly against single-payer healthcare in 2016 and 2020. They even tried to sell single-payer and its supporters as racist.

dualvariable 2mo ago

Republicans are the party of pulling up the ladder behind you. They don't give any shits about free market economics or struggling entrepreneurs. They care about protecting their own money. And it isn't about big business; that's the Democratic Party. It is about hoarding wealth and gaining more.