US Healthcare Reform

[purplecthulhu]

Amid all the storm and drang about US Healthcare reform, I'm beginning to get the impression that there is an underlying assumption that the 'anti-reformers' have that needs to be investigated

Comments

[del_c]

The really crazy assumption that I keep seeing is that the speakers/writers themselves will be "paying their taxes" for the poor to get free health care. Progressive taxation (even the American progression, which isn't very progressive) means that won't happen. The speakers themselves will invariably be making a fat profit on the deal: they will be getting thousands of dollars of free health care, paid for by taxes on the super-rich, not on them

[fjm]

Mainly their money earned itself, making more money through the labor of other people doing the actual earning but not getting the pay.

Clearly you are a communist :-)

[klwilliams]

There is also this intense anger at the thought that someone might be getting something that they don't deserve, for whatever definition of deserving the thinker may have. I've seen this with Welfare recipients especially, because of course everyone who is getting Welfare is cheating the system. Feh.

[perlmonger]

Yes, to the extent that it's completely pointless to argue that it's more cost-effective for everyone to get a benefit than to fund Byzantine means- or eligibility-testing bureaucracies to filter payments. Better that everyone lose out than even one undeserving, scrounging, n'er-do-well get anything at all.

See also cramming jails full to overflowing with prisoners (and no parole), rather than spending an order of magnitude less on care and rehabilitation elsewhere, that might actually have a chance of reducing recidivism.

[purplecthulhu]

Indeed...

But it should be noted that many express these same (wrongheaded) opinions in the UK, so we are far from whiter than white...

[perlmonger]

I was taking that as read ;)

The current government being amongst the worst in this, too. Never mind about ignoring expert advice they've commissioned themselves where it disagrees with their (or tabloid, which likely amounts to the same thing) prejudices.

[count_2_4]

While I can't say that you are correct, as I do not have such assumptions. I think hat you are, I do se a lot of that kind of thinking over here. It's pretty messed up that the people who are supposed to be about charity are the least charitable.