American Politics Discussion Thread

[Commodore]

Single-payer universal health care requires more social unity than currently exists. There are...hopefully a minority, but definitely a plurality, of Americans who would seek to deny their political enemies healthcare because of who the other side voted for.

What do you mean by a minority plurality in the context of "Americans who seek to deny their political enemies healthcare"? I would have though that was just a dichotomy, but I guess you're seeing 3+ categories?

I am fortunate to have never heard of this position before. It's pretty depressing. I hope it's rare.

I'm hoping it's a minority position, but given discourse, I'm not sure. The plurality thing was the YouGov poll I saw *before* the election that had a plurality of respondents (~40%) cite "other Americans" as the "greatest threat to our security" (other threats were things like "China" or "coronavirus", etc). I don't think the last four months have improved things. As you've not heard this position before, I suppose you've not been on Twitter for >45s?

[darrelljs]

Healthcare is one of those areas there *is* a difference between progressives and a median Democrat. I’m all for higher taxes to ensure those that can’t afford coverage have it, but don’t take away my private insurance. I’ve seen too much what a public only option looks like and I don’t like it.

Darrell

[SevenSpirits]

Single-payer universal health care requires more social unity than currently exists. There are...hopefully a minority, but definitely a plurality, of Americans who would seek to deny their political enemies healthcare because of who the other side voted for.

What do you mean by a minority plurality in the context of "Americans who seek to deny their political enemies healthcare"? I would have though that was just a dichotomy, but I guess you're seeing 3+ categories?

I am fortunate to have never heard of this position before. It's pretty depressing. I hope it's rare.

I'm hoping it's a minority position, but given discourse, I'm not sure. The plurality thing was the YouGov poll I saw *before* the election that had a plurality of respondents (~40%) cite "other Americans" as the "greatest threat to our security" (other threats were things like "China" or "coronavirus", etc). I don't think the last four months have improved things. As you've not heard this position before, I suppose you've not been on Twitter for >45s?

OK, you're drawing a connection that isn't in the poll, from "there exist Americans who are the greatest threat to our security" to "we shouldn't give my political enemies healthcare". Here are the inferential leaps being made in that connection:

1. Americans who are the greatest threat to our security is the same group of people as my political enemies
* Maybe the poll had more context that I'm missing here, but I don't see any reason to think that people didn't answer this question thinking about apolitical criminals in their neighborhood.
* Even assuming the context makes it clearly political, there's no indication that people think ALL their political enemies are in the "most dangerous" group. Maybe they just mean politicians on the other side, or extremists on the other side, or media figures on the other side, or people on the other side of a specific issue like vaccines, etc.

2. We should deny healthcare to Americans who are the greatest threat to our security.
* Many people who want universal healthcare genuinely think it's something that should be provided to all humans.
* From a practical standpoint, many people believe that the reason people get radicalized is because they are deprived of basic needs. So giving these people healthcare might actually help this supposed greatest threat.

If what you're basing it on is this poll, I think the claim is completely unfounded, and I don't think you've given evidence of a single person who thinks that. Like I said, I've literally never heard anyone advocate for the position of denying healthcare to political opponents. It's true I hear more liberals than conservatives, and republicans tend to be the more anti-healthcare ones, but I hear about lots of less-popular positions than you suppose this one is. The closest thing is conservative Christians wanting to deny people birth control, but that's always explicitly only birth control, and it's also everyone, not just political enemies, and finally, even most of that conservative Christian opposition to birth control is limited in some way, e.g. "the state shouldn't pay for it", "it shouldn't be a mandatory inclusion in health care plans", etc.

(To answer your question, I spend a couple minutes a year on twitter and I think it's a terrible website.)

[Jowy]

Healthcare is one of those areas there *is* a difference between progressives and a median Democrat.  I’m all for higher taxes to ensure those that can’t afford coverage have it, but don’t take away my private insurance.  I’ve seen too much what a public only option looks like and I don’t like it.

Darrell

How can the government take away your private insurance?

[darrelljs]

I've literally never heard anyone advocate for the position of denying healthcare to political opponents.

I've never heard anyone advocate denying the vote to to political opponents, but I'm sure it happens.  Denying healthcare to undocumented residents (literally making it impossible for them to buy private insurance even if they can afford it) comes close.  Or what about a state turning down expanded medicaid funding from the ACA, to induce Democratic leaning voters to go to somewhere else?  I'd be willing to bet that ancillary "benefit" came up in the discussions to accept/reject the money, but of course we'll never know.

Darrell

[darrelljs]

Healthcare is one of those areas there *is* a difference between progressives and a median Democrat.  I’m all for higher taxes to ensure those that can’t afford coverage have it, but don’t take away my private insurance.  I’ve seen too much what a public only option looks like and I don’t like it.

Darrell

How can the government take away your private insurance?

Isn't that the definition of a single payer system?  This chart seems to imply as much:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/...insurance/

Darrell

[T-hawk]

How can the government take away your private insurance?

It's not exactly the private insurance - the way this happens is to rule that providers must go through the government system and cannot sell their services privately. The reasoning is that, if providers can provide care privately, they will do so because that's more profitable and so there will be no or only low-quality providers in the government system. (I'm not arguing either for or against this reasoning, just saying that's what the argument is.)

Medical care always involves a provider providing those services; it's not something that you can just declare and have happen. It's about the government disallowing private providers, not the insurance that's just a layer to obfuscate who pays for it.

[Commodore]

I've literally never heard anyone advocate for the position of denying healthcare to political opponents.

I've never heard anyone advocate denying the vote to to political opponents, but I'm sure it happens.  Denying healthcare to undocumented residents (literally making it impossible for them to buy private insurance even if they can afford it) comes close.  Or what about a state turning down expanded medicaid funding from the ACA, to induce Democratic leaning voters to go to somewhere else?  I'd be willing to bet that ancillary "benefit" came up in the discussions to accept/reject the money, but of course we'll never know.

Darrell

I've heard people advocate denying the vote to political opponents on CNN and FOX. And endorsement of droning US citizens. And reeducation camps. I've definitely heard "if they go without a mask, we shouldn't give them vaccines" (which seems like would be a briar patch punishment to the modal mask-refuser, but maybe I'm generalizing). Socialized medicine always leads to socialized behavioral judgements, of course, but I don't that's an argument against it in all societies...but someplace this divided, you *know* there are going to be people who want to refuse to treat COVID or AIDS (pick your red/blue poison), because everything is political now.

[Jowy]

How can the government take away your private insurance?

It's not exactly the private insurance - the way this happens is to rule that providers must go through the government system and cannot sell their services privately.  The reasoning is that, if providers can provide care privately, they will do so because that's more profitable and so there will be no or only low-quality providers in the government system.  (I'm not arguing either for or against this reasoning, just saying that's what the argument is.)

Medical care always involves a provider providing those services; it's not something that you can just declare and have happen.  It's about the government disallowing private providers, not the insurance that's just a layer to obfuscate who pays for it.

Thanks. I was confused because we have public healthcare, but also optional private healthcare and insurances. Not too familiar with it all though.

[Mr. Cairo]

Healthcare is one of those areas there *is* a difference between progressives and a median Democrat.  I’m all for higher taxes to ensure those that can’t afford coverage have it, but don’t take away my private insurance.  I’ve seen too much what a public only option looks like and I don’t like it.

Darrell

I'm not sure I see your objection. If the quality of care doesn't change, if you still go to the same hospital, why should it matter if your coverage is provided by a private company or by the state?

Here in Canada, you can have private insurance if you want, but you still go to the same hospital if you break a leg or get cancer regardless of insurance. Private insurance here is only useful to cover the things that (for some reason) the state doesn't cover (dental, pharmacare, glasses).

What "public only option" have you seen that you're referring to?