What’s keeping people from demanding it?
Regulatory capture. The government is funded by the medical insurance companies. The people haven’t demanded it because they’ve been told it’s not an option. It’s impossible, too expensive, a fantasy.
I fully support it but only for non-obese, US citizens. Everyone else should get taxed for it but not have access.
I haven’t seen that proposal yet.
It would take a lot of pressure off of people to grind themselves down for profits as well as demonstrate that a government can actually take care of people, two precedents the capitalist class absolutely refuses to set.
because that’s not profitable enough for capitalism and the oligarchs
Because people who have a job with benefits feel like they’ve worked their way up the chain to earn those benefits. People who work but don’t have benefits just don’t work hard enough. And let’s not even talk about those who don’t work.
We need to divorce healthcare from employment.
In order to understand that, it helps to look why we never got it to begin with. Do you think this system where we all suffer so a few can be rich was the first thing that came to mind, and then civilization evolved to be better so we got universal health care? No, people cooperated first, and then when communications technology started forming more centralization, started building a pathway to universal healthcare.
But this is America! It’s a settler colonial empire! So of course it was the former slaves who were building cooperatives, and organized labor building a pathway to universal healthcare, and white racists with all the money and power to turn those systems of cooperative support into siphons for them to suck us dry from.
There isn’t an organized group for it, but there are organized groups against it.
The two attempts to do so, in 1993 and 2009, saw little organized political activity in favor of creating a single payer system while there was organized political resistance against it.
If politicians lose their seats trying to support a single payer system, they won’t be around after the next election.
In the USA, there is little corruption officially; that’s only because bribery is legal. Billionaires, Corporations, Banks and even other nations like Saudi Arabia can “contribute” huge amounts of money without even revealing who they are.
Insurers, drug manufacturers and other interested parties “donate” many millions of dollars through these Super PACs and shell companies to keep things as they like them.
The voters are too busy juggling low-wage jobs to compete with the multi-generational wealth accumulators; on top of this, they pay more taxes in more ways than any other generation before.
Our representatives won’t bite the hand that feeds them willingly, and are legally protected to continue doing so.
People’s standard of living and life spans are shrinking as a result. See Citizens United, Super PACs, Panama Papers and Pandora Papers for more details.
There’s so much, unions squashed, down to 10% of workforce and those are mostly police and government ironically. Check out Patriot Act if you wonder why there’s so little organizing. The FED haha it never ends
Capitalism, severely lowered expectations, mainstream news media controlled by the billionaire class pumping out capitalist propaganda. People continuing to believe the Democratic Party wants to enact universal healthcare when all elected Dems really care about is staying in power, doing the bare minimum, and raking in the cash from their billionaire donors. People continuing to vote for Democrats based on that belief when they could be using their votes to vote in anti-capitalist candidates from the real left (Green Party, PSL, etc).
When Democrats are in charge of all of the levers of power, they say: “Darn there are all these rules we have to follow and the Republicans are obstructing us and won’t budge. Oh well, better luck next time 🤷♂️” while behind closed doors they’re listening to the health insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies who offer them money and perks and special treatment and job offers in the industry once they’re out of office.
Follow the money: the current system makes more sense for private insurers, pharma, and large healthcare providers who all benefit from things staying as they are.
But it’s not just about corporations. The US also built its system around employer-based insurance back in World War II, and now healthcare is tied to your job. That creates risk: leaving your job can mean losing coverage, which naturally makes people more cautious and dependent on poor employment. This also makes people more cautious about starting up a business so the economy becomes controlled in the hands of a few - and so more oligarchic
There’s also a cultural angle. In the US, “freedom” is often seen as freedom from government involvement, even if that sometimes means less practical freedom (like being unable to change jobs easily), and the individual spending more on insurance than they would on taxes.
So it’s not one single reason - it’s money, history, and mindset all reinforcing each other.
Rigidity and social control also show up in other countries with strategies like high housing costs.
If you dare to struggle, you dare to win! If you dare not struggle, then damn it, you don’t deserve to win! Fred Hampton
That is the problem, americans are weak, pacified and subservient.
Bad enough that they already resign in their ‘normal’ pathetic conditions (no healthcare, student debt,…)
Even the current regime can’t motivat them.
Near fascist, and still nothing happens.
No strikes, big riots, etc…
They have their little walks with their edgy signs, complain on social media about the bad orange man or go to their lame No Kings meetings.
There the fake-left Uniparty politician promises to make it all better.
You have to stay nicely between the lines, violence is bad and has no place in a democracy, simply wait a few years and vote for me next time. Trust me!
And they do.Are you paying attention? We’ve broken the record for the largest protests in American history like 3 times in a row since trump came in, and we’re likely going to break it again on the 28th
And so?
Like most of these kinds of problems, the answer can be boiled down to a simple commonality: The people who stand to lose the most from things changing for the better are the same people who have the most power to influence the outcomes. The only thing that can counter that is a strong labor movement.
Now, there is a more complicated question to be asked about why US labor movements have been less successful than their European counterparts, but that I don’t have an easy answer for.
The second thing is actually pretty easy to answer. The same people from the first part of your answer have also been using their outsized power and influence to erode the power and influence of unions over time. Many actions taken by European unions would be considered illegal in America and met with violent state oppression. While Europe has maintained many of their labor rights from the turn of the 20th century, America’s labor rights have been rolled back to almost before the new deal. Most unions barely have the right to strike, and even when they can that power is exceptionally limited. Basically any effective labor action in the US would require people to accept that they are breaking the law, and will likely die, sustain life altering injury, or go to jail for it. Since most Americans that would benefit from strong unions are living in oppressive poverty to begin with they either see the risks of illegal labor action as too large, or have been propagandized against it.
Yeah, but why did it turn out differently like that? Europe surely had its own class of capitalists and other entrenched interests. They could have pushed for similar suppression measures.
Maybe it had something to do with the difference in fallout from WWII? Idk. I’m not super well read on this subject in particular, so I don’t know enough to do anything but speculate.
I feel the unionds themselves kinda lost their way in the 80’s and only recovered in the millenium. Rather than pushing to lower worktime and expanding their ranks they focused more on exclusivity and bookoo overtime.
The powerful have convinced the masses that paying a single dime extra in taxes is just about the worst thing you could be forced to do, including whatever happened on that Island. So the common people are unable to reconcile that everyone paying higher taxes will make healthcare better for everyone. Normal people get to stay sick, poor, and rely on GoFundMe or die prematurely while the powerful laugh and count their money. It’s a fucking GRIFT.
Why didn’t nazi Germany have universal healthcare?
What kept people from demanding it?
… because they did have it?
It wasn’t universal at the time, covering only the poorest workers, but Germany was the first country to establish a social health care system in 1883. It didn’t work very well during the war, but it was technically still there. Since the war, they gradually expanded it achieving universal coverage sometime in the 1980s.
Cause that’s “commumism.”
