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<< I honestly think that there's something deeply damaged at the heart of the American psyche. You've no sense that you are “are all one and the same” to use F

<< I honestly think that there's something deeply damaged at the heart of the American psyche. You've no sense that you are “are all one and the same” to use Ford's words. You can't see why collectively paying taxes for healthcare (everyone's family has an illness at some point in time) and collectively bargaining for cheaper medicines from manufacturers might be overall a good thing. More than half of Americans support single-payer. Some estimates are as high as 70%. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/28/most-americans-now-support-medicare-for-all-and-free-college-tuition.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/28/most-americans-now-support-m... I absolutely support single-payer and so do most of the people I know. There isn't a HN thread long enough for the discussion of what it might take to actually get single-payer done.

igravious 8y ago
70% ? If that's true then that's fantastic but also very worrying. This shows that whereas the majority of the nation support some form of single-payer option the government (no matter who is in charge) resists it. This means that the government works for the few, not the many. This implies an oligarchy which turns out to be verifiable[0]. Out of interest I looked up all the countries that have neither free nor universal healthcare[1] and cross-ranked them according to their human development index[2]. The list is quite small. What we see is that the US is the only country with a _supposedly_ very high human development index (and the only one in the top 70 of countries) that has a healthcare system that is neither free nor fair. 8 out of the 10 least developed countries in the world are on this list. How Americans are not figuratively up in arms over this is beyond me. I think it is fair to say that the US political system is broken in a very real sense. This is worrying because traditionally only catastrophe curbs inequality this bad[3] and I'm not sure incrementalism works in a broken system. Oh well, time will tell. Country Free? All? Level Rank United States No No V 13 Saint Kitts and Nevis No No H 72 Grenada No No H 75 Lebanon No No H 80 Dominican Republic No No H 94 Jordan No No H 95 Suriname No No H 100 Dominica No No H 103 Marshall Islands No No H 106 Turkmenistan No No H 108 Indonesia No No M 116 Iraq No No M 120 Tajikistan No No M 127 Micronesia No No M 131 Kenya No No M 142 Cambodia No No M 146 Angola No No M 147 Cameroon No No M 151 Syrian Arab Republic No No L 155 Zimbabwe No No L 156 Nigeria No No L 157 Mauritania No No L 159 Senegal No No L 164 Comoros No No L 165 Sudan No No L 167 Haiti No No L 168 Afghanistan No No L 168 Gambia No No L 174 Guinea No No L 175 Guinea-Bissau No No L 177 Mozambique No No L 180 Liberia No No L 181 Mali No No L 182 Sierra Leone No No L 184 Burundi No No L 185 Chad No No L 186 South Sudan No No L 187 Niger No No L 189 Somalia No No - --- [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/02/scheidel-great-leveler-inequality-violence/517164/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/02/scheide... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_universal_health_care https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_univers... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev... [3] https://www.businessinsider.com/major-study-finds-that-the-us-is-an-oligarchy-2014-4?IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/major-study-finds-that-the-u...

igravious 8y ago

70% ? If that's true then that's fantastic but also very worrying. This shows that whereas the majority of the nation support some form of single-payer option the government (no matter who is in charge) resists it. This means that the government works for the few, not the many. This implies an oligarchy which turns out to be verifiable[0]. Out of interest I looked up all the countries that have neither free nor universal healthcare[1] and cross-ranked them according to their human development index[2]. The list is quite small. What we see is that the US is the only country with a _supposedly_ very high human development index (and the only one in the top 70 of countries) that has a healthcare system that is neither free nor fair. 8 out of the 10 least developed countries in the world are on this list. How Americans are not figuratively up in arms over this is beyond me. I think it is fair to say that the US political system is broken in a very real sense. This is worrying because traditionally only catastrophe curbs inequality this bad[3] and I'm not sure incrementalism works in a broken system. Oh well, time will tell. Country Free? All? Level Rank United States No No V 13 Saint Kitts and Nevis No No H 72 Grenada No No H 75 Lebanon No No H 80 Dominican Republic No No H 94 Jordan No No H 95 Suriname No No H 100 Dominica No No H 103 Marshall Islands No No H 106 Turkmenistan No No H 108 Indonesia No No M 116 Iraq No No M 120 Tajikistan No No M 127 Micronesia No No M 131 Kenya No No M 142 Cambodia No No M 146 Angola No No M 147 Cameroon No No M 151 Syrian Arab Republic No No L 155 Zimbabwe No No L 156 Nigeria No No L 157 Mauritania No No L 159 Senegal No No L 164 Comoros No No L 165 Sudan No No L 167 Haiti No No L 168 Afghanistan No No L 168 Gambia No No L 174 Guinea No No L 175 Guinea-Bissau No No L 177 Mozambique No No L 180 Liberia No No L 181 Mali No No L 182 Sierra Leone No No L 184 Burundi No No L 185 Chad No No L 186 South Sudan No No L 187 Niger No No L 189 Somalia No No - --- [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/02/scheidel-great-leveler-inequality-violence/517164/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/02/scheide... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_universal_health_care https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_univers... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev... [3] https://www.businessinsider.com/major-study-finds-that-the-us-is-an-oligarchy-2014-4?IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/major-study-finds-that-the-u...