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The US is far too broken for such a thing to ever come to be. Politicians are bought and paid for, and the impact on the insurance companies and their profits m

The US is far too broken for such a thing to ever come to be. Politicians are bought and paid for, and the impact on the insurance companies and their profits make this impossible. US legislators will never, ever, ever put the needs of the people above the needs of corporations, not as long as corporations can wield their massive wealth as "free speech" in the form of lobbying and political donations. Sounds nice, though.

whimsicalism 1mo ago
I'm earnestly curious what the alternatives to CU look like and what that would mean for for-profit companies like The New York Times?
consensus1 1mo ago
Nobody, including congress, gives a rat's ass about insurance companies and their profits. The truth is that someone has to approve or deny healthcare. Every universal system does it too, but by government policy instead of corporate decision. After the CEO of United Healthcare was gunned down in the streets for doing that thankless job do you think congress is saying to themselves "hey, maybe we should get into that business"?
- googaar 1mo ago
  Man I wish I could downvote a comment. This is what you’d see on Reddit. “Thankless job” is a crazy way to describe United Healthcare. No one cares about insurance companies and their profits?? This doesn’t even make sense, so many people rely on insurance and many stakeholders profit off the American insurance system.
  - whimsicalism 1mo ago
    You would never see content like that on Reddit as it is far outside of the political valence there.
  - strictnein 1mo ago
    > "Man I wish I could downvote a comment" I mean, you can do that here. The system just restricts what you can do until you've spent more time commenting.
- jgwil2 1mo ago
  > thankless job His annual compensation was over $10 million.
  - Aunche 1mo ago
    That's their point. Congress isn't going to get $10 million from providing universal healthcare (at least for any system that is any good), so they have no incentive to pass it. The year the ACA passed, Democrats suffered one of the worst legislative defeats in history. Nobody wants to be the person to tell millions of people that they can no longer see their chiropractor for free or that their healthcare is not longer paying thousands of dollars a month for weight loss medications. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_elections
    - preg_match 1mo ago
      There’s a disconnect between what people say they want, and what people actually want. People say they don’t like the ACA. But if you try to revoke its grants, it’s political suicide. Which is why republicans don’t even try. Bring back denying insurance for pre-existing conditions? Lower the age for parent-child plans? Can you even grasp just how wildly unpopular either of those would be? Or what about marketplace plans? Congratulations, you’ve just destroyed every small business and entrepreneur in the country. I’m sure that will go over well. The ACA is universally loved. Yes, everyone likes it. They won’t say that because they don’t know exactly what it gave them, and they’ve taken it for granted. Many of you would be uninsurable without the ACA. And that’s why, despite people complaining, the republicans do not dare repeal even parts of the ACA. It’s too popular, whether people know it or not. I suspect a single payer system would be equivalent. It would be contested hard, but once it’s passed, it’s passed. It would become so unbelievably popular for a majority of the population that suggesting a repeal would immediately end your political career.
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
- onraglanroad 1mo ago
  > someone has to approve or deny healthcare. Every universal system does it too, but by government policy instead of corporate decision That's another lie you've been told and believed. With Universal Healthcare the government just provides the funding. Medical decisions are made by Doctors.
  - nradov 1mo ago
    Nonsense. In every nationalized healthcare system there is care rationing performed by government bureaucrats. Regardless of a doctor's opinion on medical necessity, some treatments involve long waiting lists or third-party reviews or are simply unavailable. That might be preferable to our current system in certain ways but let's not pretend that there are no trade-offs. For example, let's say you're in England and your doctor decides you need Enhertu or proton beam therapy. That decision is meaningless because the NHS won't pay for them.
    - onraglanroad 29d ago
      The lie you're believing is that the decision is made by government bureaucrats. See my other reply in this thread.
  - consensus1 1mo ago
    I would love to know how universal healthcare works in your head
    - onraglanroad 29d ago
      It's not how it works in my head: it's the reality of how it works here. To quote from my other reply: They don't fund everything. They don't fund anything in particular. They provide the funding and the medical professionals decide how best to allocate that funding for the best results.
  - matteoraso 29d ago
    >With Universal Healthcare the government just provides the funding. And what makes you think that they fund everything? I support universal healthcare as well (I'm literally Canadian), but I can accept that there are tradeoffs associated with it.
iambateman 1mo ago
When I was a kid, my parents would say “with that attitude, you’re right.” We can and should expect a lot out of the people around us and especially the ones who choose civil service. Our grandparents ended slavery, got votes for women, established a merit-based civil service, fought fascism, passed equal rights legislation, and created the most dynamic large economy in history. We have problems, too, but we are not powerless to fix them.
- ctoth 1mo ago
  You notice this? It's literally everywhere. So much negativity. Sometimes I wonder how much is enemy action and how much is just depression or some other mental illness.
  - mrguyorama 29d ago
    Producing political apathy and learned helplessness is an explicit purpose of the "Flood the zone" propaganda strategy. It's a serious requirement for despots. You don't need a large and supportive group. You don't need 80% of the population expressing support for your acts. All you need is like 20% of the population absolutely Ride-Or-Die levels of support for you, willing to do violence and hate on your behalf, and everyone else just kind of apathetic, unsure, or oppressed enough to stay down.
- HumblyTossed 1mo ago
  Sadly so much of that, people are actively trying to undo it.
- doom2 1mo ago
  > We have problems, too, but we are not powerless to fix them. Indeed. Even as some of the more mainstream methods to address our current problems become less effective, we should be open to other ways change can come about. Among your list, many of those achievements had their roots in various approaches that didn't involve legislators.
stronglikedan 1mo ago
The US has gone through a lot of changes since it's inception, so there's no reason we can't change this. Preferably to a system where people have the freedom to pay out of pocket for whatever level of care they want when they can afford it, avoiding the "death panels" and extended wait times that exist just about everywhere that already has a universal health system.
- avgDev 1mo ago
  Universal healthcare brings the cost of private healthcare down. I would still get private insurance for VIP car but it would cost less than what i am paying now.

whimsicalism 1mo ago

I'm earnestly curious what the alternatives to CU look like and what that would mean for for-profit companies like The New York Times?

consensus1 1mo ago

Nobody, including congress, gives a rat's ass about insurance companies and their profits. The truth is that someone has to approve or deny healthcare. Every universal system does it too, but by government policy instead of corporate decision. After the CEO of United Healthcare was gunned down in the streets for doing that thankless job do you think congress is saying to themselves "hey, maybe we should get into that business"?

googaar 1mo ago
Man I wish I could downvote a comment. This is what you’d see on Reddit. “Thankless job” is a crazy way to describe United Healthcare. No one cares about insurance companies and their profits?? This doesn’t even make sense, so many people rely on insurance and many stakeholders profit off the American insurance system.
- whimsicalism 1mo ago
  You would never see content like that on Reddit as it is far outside of the political valence there.
- strictnein 1mo ago
  > "Man I wish I could downvote a comment" I mean, you can do that here. The system just restricts what you can do until you've spent more time commenting.
jgwil2 1mo ago
> thankless job His annual compensation was over $10 million.
- Aunche 1mo ago
  That's their point. Congress isn't going to get $10 million from providing universal healthcare (at least for any system that is any good), so they have no incentive to pass it. The year the ACA passed, Democrats suffered one of the worst legislative defeats in history. Nobody wants to be the person to tell millions of people that they can no longer see their chiropractor for free or that their healthcare is not longer paying thousands of dollars a month for weight loss medications. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_elections
  - preg_match 1mo ago
    There’s a disconnect between what people say they want, and what people actually want. People say they don’t like the ACA. But if you try to revoke its grants, it’s political suicide. Which is why republicans don’t even try. Bring back denying insurance for pre-existing conditions? Lower the age for parent-child plans? Can you even grasp just how wildly unpopular either of those would be? Or what about marketplace plans? Congratulations, you’ve just destroyed every small business and entrepreneur in the country. I’m sure that will go over well. The ACA is universally loved. Yes, everyone likes it. They won’t say that because they don’t know exactly what it gave them, and they’ve taken it for granted. Many of you would be uninsurable without the ACA. And that’s why, despite people complaining, the republicans do not dare repeal even parts of the ACA. It’s too popular, whether people know it or not. I suspect a single payer system would be equivalent. It would be contested hard, but once it’s passed, it’s passed. It would become so unbelievably popular for a majority of the population that suggesting a repeal would immediately end your political career.
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
onraglanroad 1mo ago
> someone has to approve or deny healthcare. Every universal system does it too, but by government policy instead of corporate decision That's another lie you've been told and believed. With Universal Healthcare the government just provides the funding. Medical decisions are made by Doctors.
- nradov 1mo ago
  Nonsense. In every nationalized healthcare system there is care rationing performed by government bureaucrats. Regardless of a doctor's opinion on medical necessity, some treatments involve long waiting lists or third-party reviews or are simply unavailable. That might be preferable to our current system in certain ways but let's not pretend that there are no trade-offs. For example, let's say you're in England and your doctor decides you need Enhertu or proton beam therapy. That decision is meaningless because the NHS won't pay for them.
  - onraglanroad 29d ago
    The lie you're believing is that the decision is made by government bureaucrats. See my other reply in this thread.
- consensus1 1mo ago
  I would love to know how universal healthcare works in your head
  - onraglanroad 29d ago
    It's not how it works in my head: it's the reality of how it works here. To quote from my other reply: They don't fund everything. They don't fund anything in particular. They provide the funding and the medical professionals decide how best to allocate that funding for the best results.
- matteoraso 29d ago
  >With Universal Healthcare the government just provides the funding. And what makes you think that they fund everything? I support universal healthcare as well (I'm literally Canadian), but I can accept that there are tradeoffs associated with it.

iambateman 1mo ago

When I was a kid, my parents would say “with that attitude, you’re right.” We can and should expect a lot out of the people around us and especially the ones who choose civil service. Our grandparents ended slavery, got votes for women, established a merit-based civil service, fought fascism, passed equal rights legislation, and created the most dynamic large economy in history. We have problems, too, but we are not powerless to fix them.

ctoth 1mo ago
You notice this? It's literally everywhere. So much negativity. Sometimes I wonder how much is enemy action and how much is just depression or some other mental illness.
- mrguyorama 29d ago
  Producing political apathy and learned helplessness is an explicit purpose of the "Flood the zone" propaganda strategy. It's a serious requirement for despots. You don't need a large and supportive group. You don't need 80% of the population expressing support for your acts. All you need is like 20% of the population absolutely Ride-Or-Die levels of support for you, willing to do violence and hate on your behalf, and everyone else just kind of apathetic, unsure, or oppressed enough to stay down.
HumblyTossed 1mo ago
Sadly so much of that, people are actively trying to undo it.
doom2 1mo ago
> We have problems, too, but we are not powerless to fix them. Indeed. Even as some of the more mainstream methods to address our current problems become less effective, we should be open to other ways change can come about. Among your list, many of those achievements had their roots in various approaches that didn't involve legislators.

stronglikedan 1mo ago

The US has gone through a lot of changes since it's inception, so there's no reason we can't change this. Preferably to a system where people have the freedom to pay out of pocket for whatever level of care they want when they can afford it, avoiding the "death panels" and extended wait times that exist just about everywhere that already has a universal health system.

avgDev 1mo ago
Universal healthcare brings the cost of private healthcare down. I would still get private insurance for VIP car but it would cost less than what i am paying now.