Why Americans hate single-payer insurance

mikehudack:

southpol:

azspot:

Because they don’t know they have it. A commenter points me to this:

At a recent town-hall meeting in suburban Simpsonville, a man stood up and told Rep. Robert Inglis (R-S.C.) to “keep your government hands off my Medicare.”

“I had to politely explain that, ‘Actually, sir, your health care is being provided by the government,’ ” Inglis recalled. “But he wasn’t having any of it.”

One of the truly amazing and depressing things about the health reform debate is the persistence of fear-mongering over “socialized medicine” even though we already have a system in which the government pays substantially more medical bills (47% of the total) than the private insurance industry (35%).

In a way, this is the flip side of the persistent belief that the free market can cure healthcare, even though there are no places where it actually has; people also believe that government-provided insurance can’t work, even though there are many places where it does — and one of those places is the United States of America.

And if there were widespread understanding about the differences between a single-payer system for health insurance (Canada) and a nationalized health care system (U.K.), there would be more support for the compromise position (having a public option). But even Harvard economists get that wrong, and when it comes to health care, repeated demonstration of total incomprehension doesn’t jeopardize your invitations to opine on the subject.

azspot

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  1. andidigress reblogged this from dalasverdugo
  2. robot-heart-politics reblogged this from quotingthecrisis and added:
    Crisis: Why Americans hate single-payer
  3. quotingthecrisis reblogged this from azspot
  4. theream reblogged this from dalasverdugo and added:
    Crazy Ignorant American Pseudolectual: Why Americans hate single-payer
  5. strawberrytwin reblogged this from shaneguiter
  6. grace-catherine reblogged this from walpaper and added:
    People don’t want government involvement but are quick to accept government aid. Nearly all health care in the US is...
  7. dalasverdugo reblogged this from azspot
  8. jonhall reblogged this from squashed
  9. nakaonwood reblogged this from mikehudack
  10. shaneguiter reblogged this from azspot
  11. kellysutton2 reblogged this from mikehudack and added:
    My personal experiences with health care abroad and at home give me an informed opinion that other companies are doing...
  12. mikehudack reblogged this from southpol
  13. southpol reblogged this from azspot and added:
    And if there were widespread understanding about the differences between a single-payer system for health insurance...
  14. walpaper reblogged this from azspot and added:
    Because they don’t know they have it. A commenter points me to this: At a recent town-hall meeting in suburban...
  15. squashed reblogged this from azspot and added:
    The brightest bulb at
  16. azspot posted this

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