Mildly Interesting

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For the Americans, might help. (lemmy.ca)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I can’t imagine why USA hasn’t introduced something similar yet, but prefer all that bureaucracy that only makes the whole process way more expensive. Just to make sure some unemployed poor guy doesn’t get free treatment!!

(concepts stolen from a very insightful reddit post from years ago) Nearly all modern conservative positions can be explained with two idea.

Society is zero-sum. For someone to gain something, someone else must lose something.
Class is defined and there should be no mobility for lower classes to ascend to higher classes in society.

So apply this to healthcare:

Most arguing against medical-treatment-for-all view it as zero-sum. So for most its not just because they don't want some unemployed poor guy getting free treatment, but rather, "if the unemployed poor guy gets free treatment, then treatment won't be available at some point in the future when I need it". This is silly of course.

For others arguing against medical-treatment-for-all, the suffering is the point. The unemployed poor guy should suffer because that is his station in life. A life of comfort is reserved for those of higher classes. They believe, alleviating his suffering would go against the class he's in and should in. This is, of course, also silly.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

They also use the higher taxes argument. They lean on the decades of anti tax propaganda and tell people your taxes have to go up for it to work. Of course your taxes go up by less than you save on premiums and deductibles, but they just shout, "taxes are theft" over anyone pointing that out.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

They also use the higher taxes argument. They lean on the decades of anti tax propaganda and tell people your taxes have to go up for it to work.

This is a rephrasing of their zero sum argument. As in "for the poor to gain healthcare, you, the middle class, must lose wealth".