What I find most strange about the US and healthcare, is that some people find the thought of helping people ailing people 'un-American' or something. The frothing at the mouth protests by people objecting to Obamacare, simply made the US look like a country full of crazy people. Some of the behaviour by these demented and ill informed people towards sick people was absolutely shameful.
The discussion is too often framed in the context of freedom of choice (which pushes a lot of buttons among those who have been primed to react) or as "government-run" healthcare, implying that some civil servant is sitting there in the doctor's office with you deciding what pills to take, or when to let you die. That's not what a single-payer system is, of course, but we're dealing with faith-based beliefs, imo, so facts don't matter. This may be partly the result of clever marketing by the private insurance industry, who have managed to convince people it is a freedom of choice issue. Of course they would, wouldn't they? Interesting that the insurance industry should, in this context, be the "good' guy, when it is almost always universally vilified otherwise.
The fact that large numbers of people can go bankrupt despite having insurance coverage should act as a wake-up but that doesn't seem to the case. I guess the retort is that they should have bought a better insurance policy, so it is really the sick person's fault. The people who buy the wrong policy stay sick and die early, or at least suffer a lot more; must be that creative destruction I keep hearing about.
But there may be a more fundamental thing going on. Some people believe that the reason humans form into groups and eventually societies is for the general benefit of all. Not everyone necessarily believes that. Some people believe that society exists as a support system for the successful. The notion that private enterprise is just one method we've invented to deliver some goods and services and that we should not expect it to always work in all sectors is not an acceptable point of view among some people. Government is always bad, it seems, except magically when it comes to security or intelligence or the military, then the government becomes a sainted presence to be revered and it is treason not to think so. As if things are that black and white.
There is also a knee-jerk belief that government-run enterprises always work out badly and cost too much. It's easy to come to that belief, those stories will always get media attention. I've worked mostly in the private sector and a little in the public sector, and the idea that private industry is efficient and government is not just makes me laugh out loud. I can certainly find examples of government inefficiency but so what. The fact that we don't hear about boondoggles in the private sector is only because no one can investigate and report on them as easily as you can in the public sector. Freedom of information doesn't apply to private companies. And anyway, no one regards those private boondoggles as things that affect them. Except for maybe those pesky financial meltdowns, but people find a way to blame that on government too.
It's a bit of "Four legs good, two legs better", isn't it?
What constantly fascinates me is how many people are more concerned with ideology than by trying to figure out what works best.
