Obamacare Shows How Americans Are Becoming Jerks

[n2doc]

By Christopher Flavelle Nov 19, 2013 11:44 AM ET


New Gallup poll numbers show Americans increasingly dispute the idea that government has a responsibility to make sure everybody can get health insurance. It's tempting to see that as an indictment against Obamacare, but it might just mean more Americans are becoming jerks.

What's clear is that the shifting views on health care predate the Affordable Care Act. The number of Americans who think health care is the government's responsibility hovered around two-thirds for the first half of the 2000s, peaking at 69 percent in 2006. Then those numbers started falling, hitting 50 percent in 2010 and 42 percent this year.

The shrinkage of American generosity during that period wasn't just about health care. The onset of the recession corresponded with a change in public opinion on a range of issues, and in most cases the effect was to make Americans less caring about others.

Starting in 2007, the portion of Americans who said the government should guarantee every person enough to eat and a place to sleep started falling, from 69 percent to 59 percent last year. People who said the government should help the needy, even if it means going deeper into debt, fell from 54 percent to 43 percent over the same period.

That increased callousness extends beyond Americans' views of helping the needy. In 2007, 60 percent of respondents agreed that people should be willing to pay higher prices to protect the environment; by last year, that figure was 43 percent. The share who said the U.S. should "pay less attention to problems overseas" rose from 76 percent to 83 percent between 2007 and 2012.

more

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-19/obamacare-shows-how-americans-are-becoming-jerks.html

[alc]

1. Americans (many) have always been jerks (or at least had selfish motivations)

The biggest flaw in the ACA is that it assumed everyone would suddenly start to cooperate

* insurance CEOs would be happy with more customers and not want to keep increasing profit/policy

* insurance CEOs would treat the MLR as intended rather than as "a reduction of medical costs means a reduction in profit while increase in medical costs (and premiums) is the only way to increase profit on ACA policies"

* corporate CEOs would not cut hours to 29/week or drop insurance when it's in their financial interest

* healthy people without insurance would choose a more expensive policy over the tax

* republicans who were against the ACA when it passed would cooperate in it's implementation

* medical providers and pharma would reduce costs of services and drugs

* doctors and hospital would take lower reimbursement rates rather than focus on non-ACA patients

* people who's insurance got worse would not raise a big stink

* unions would be ok paying $63/policy (like all other policies) for the next 3 years to make sure insurance companies stay in the exchanges

In the first 2, the CEOs may be legally obligated to do what's in the best interest of their shareholders and are in a bind if they want to cooperate with the ACA.

You just can't get 300 million people to work together when many of them will need to go against their own self-interest. Single-payer is the only way to accomplish the objectives of the ACA.

[Laelth]

2. That's quite sad. Still ... k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[Nuclear Unicorn]

3. "Obamacare Shows How Americans Are Becoming Jerks"

I think we found our 2014 campaign theme!

[Fumesucker]

25. Bingo n/t

[dawg]

4. Most people want the government to provide, so long as it doesn't cost them anything personally.

But with the ACA (or single-payer, or any plan that would extend coverage to the uninsured), some people will have to make sacrifices so others can benefit. It is an unavoidable consequence of any plan.

Faced with that reality for the first time, some so-called "moderates" begin to balk. Their premiums might rise because they are too rich to receive a subsidy, so all of a sudden they oppose the ACA.

Some of them mask their reasons by claiming to support single-payer instead. But single-payer would cost them far, far more, and they would find a reason to oppose any actual single-payer plan just as soon as it became real enough to have a chance at passing.

[badtoworse]

5. Maybe people are just realizing that government can't do everything.

[dawg]

7. It can't do everything. But one thing government *can* do ...

is provide adequate and affordable health-care to all of its citizens.

Nearly every other first-world country on Earth has proven that. We are the outlier.

[Laelth]

26. +1. n/t

-Laelth

[CreekDog]

22. that's not true. governments in nations less wealthy than ours do all those things and more

you need to get out more, i'm sorry, you really do.

[badtoworse]

23. I've spent time in a fair number of countries and I haven't seen it. How about some examples.

[CreekDog]

24. Germany, for example, strong anti poverty programs, strong funding of infrastructure

universal health care.

that's just one.

you're just uninformed.

[badtoworse]

28. They don't have a military to speak of. That's not a realistic option for us.

[Cali_Democrat]

31. Reducing our military spending is not an option?

[badtoworse]

34. Of course it is and I'd like to see it.

I don't think we can get anywhere close to Germany's level as a percentage of GNP

[Stargazer99]

27. Maybe response #5 it is time for you to go back

to your conservative site

[kenny blankenship]

29. Then again, maybe people were responding to the WORDING of the question

specifically :
"Do you think it is the responsibility of the Federal Government to make sure that all Americans have health care coverage..."

The wording corresponds closely to the eventual, grotesque form which the health care so-called reform took: the government forcing everyone to buy private insurance. The wording is more or less just an expansion of the term "mandate". The unpopularity of the mandate has always been well known.

Paid up insurance "coverage" is not the same thing as health care, as millions have discovered to their disgust and dismay. "Making sure" that all "Americans have" paid off insurance racketeers, by strong arm methods of government, is a far fucking cry from providing health care. People know they now have an OBLIGATION from government, not a guarantee. The obligation is a tax paid to a private entity. They know that wasn't the way it was supposed to happen, and they're unhappy about it.

Maybe people aren't jerks, but are simply reacting defensively and predictably to the jerks in office and to the corporate jerks behind them with their hands up their asses making their jaws flap.

[badtoworse]

30. Good observation as to the first point - that's a subtlety I missed.

The rest of the OP relates to guarantees the government should make to the people. I believe there is a growing belief in the country that the government will not be able to deliver on all the entitlements that are currently in place. If that is true, I can understand the shifting attitudes aweay from government guarantees.

[FarCenter]

6. Besides the bad economy, the growth of the Intenet and decline of mass media probably plays a role

In particular, you no longer have 3 networks providing a shared view of things to most of the households every evening.

It is less and less easy to find an issue on which a majority of Americans agree on a single solution.

[deutsey]

8. My wife and I were talking this morning about how we're noticing

this kind of attitude more and more.

I trace it back to the "Greed Is Good" '80s when I believe this trend began in earnest. You could make the argument that its seeds were sown in the "Me generation" of the '70s, but it really took root in the '80s and its been growing like kudzu ever since.

[Mr Dixon]

9. SMH

The American people are selfish? Really?

[seveneyes]

10. Americans may be looking at their paychecks and wondering

Why in this age of efficiency they have less to spend now than they had yesterday. The average person is falling behind and may be unwilling to accelerate their decline. At least that is how it has worked in the past.

[kenny blankenship]

18. You win the thread (beginner's luck?)

When people are hard pressed, they progressively become more fearful and conservative (selfish). This is hardly a new wrinkle in human behavior, but clueless Democrats never seem to take human nature into account.

Then layered on top of the steadily worsening economic situation for the 99%, (for which they are beginning to look at fault) the Democrats come along and make their usual clusterfuck out of health care "reform". People in the 99% don't see the promised benefits. They see it doesn't live up to the hype. Their premiums have just gone up and up since ACA passed, and they start to worry and resent that they are going to be soaked to provide benefits to people with even less (which is quite true, ACA soaks the middle class to provide benefits to the working poor, and will do this more and more as more and more employer plans fall under the "Cadillac tax" due to medical inflation. If ACA had been funded by a Wall St. tax, well it all might be different but you know Democrats and Wall St. - thick as thieves!

So now the very people who voted in 2008 to give Democrats a chance to turn the country around are turned off by the high cost, by the horrific complexity, by the sudden injection of the coercive power of the state into their most private decisions, by the general dysfunction typified by the healthcare.gov website, which they sense is just the beginning, and by the myriad broken promises used to sell this shit sandwich to the country. They become at last susceptible to the GENERAL MESSAGE of Republicans, that government has no business interfering in this important area of their lives because it can't do anything right, and ultimately it doesn't do things to benefit ordinary people like themselves.

Way to go Democrats! Your incompetence and craven corporate bootlicking has destroyed America's hope and the good will of citizens, each to the other. You have reaffirmed in their minds the Republican social model of a War of each against All. You have no one but yourselves to blame.

[hfojvt]

11. nice title

more Americans fell on hard times, and thus became less generous in their outlook. It's easier to be generous, or feel generous, when you feel like you have a lot and are secure. Less so, when you are worried about your current situation.

But people are "jerks" when they are caught in a personal excrement storm and for some reason worry about that?

and this

"People who said the government should help the needy, even if it means going deeper into debt, fell from 54 percent to 43 percent over the same period."

Yes, and over the same period how many trillions have been added to the government debt? And how many politicians and pundits from BOTH sides of the aisle have been saying "we cannot afford more debt"? And saying it over and over and over, with nobody refudiating them?

But sure, it's the American people who suck. Yeah, that's the ticket.

[JNinWB]

12. The CBO should analyze Federal Single Payer coverage

This analysis would examine how instituting SP would increase Federal taxes. It's easy to denounce the ACA and support SP as long as the costs are unknown.

What if SP would increase fed taxes for individuals by 20-25%? SP would remove the burden of health insurance from employers, but how would tax-payers react?

We have all read about the almost-confiscatory taxes paid by European countries with more robust safety nets. Would Americans accept similar taxes?

[polichick]

13. The more corporations/1% - aided by "our" gov't - shit on people...

The more people shit on other people.

Sad but true.

[LittleBlue]

14. I wonder how many would approve if we had single payer

instead of ACA? No more insurance nonsense, no more Obamacare site registration, no more income-adjusted fees, just healthcare.

My guess is we'd have a solid majority.

[geek tragedy]

15. After you raised their taxes by a bunch and took away every single American's insurance

policy whether they liked it or not (except for those on Medicare)?

[LittleBlue]

16. You mean, after we give everyone healthcare instead of insurance?

They're getting a tax already through the ACA, the problem is that the ACA doesn't distribute the costs on the basis of who can best pay. Whether you call it a tax or a mandate, it's still a forced cash outflow so it doesn't really matter. Make the 1% pay their fair share. Costs would come down dramatically because we could essentially regulate the costs and the cost increase so that we aren't wildly out of proportion with the rest of the world in GDP spent on healthcare.

No website registrations, no silver or gold plans, just healthcare. They'd love it.

[JNinWB]

19. As I noted above

As long as the tax increases necessary to finance SP are unknown, it will be popular to favor that option over the ACA.

As soon as the SP taxes are calculated, voters will be horrified and strangle the legislation in its crib.

On some level, there are many who believe that health care should be "free". In the next decade paying for health insurance will become a regular line-item in family budgets--- like the car lease.

Workers assume that health insurance should be an employee benefit; I doubt that small employer group insurance will outlast this decade.

[LittleBlue]

21. If you look at countries with government-run healthcare systems

the costs are far less than ours. Less than half.

Even if you pay through insurance, as long as you get the rich to pay their fair share and control costs, 90% of people will benefit. They will never again have to think about deductibles, gold or silver, and what they pay for healthcare (regardless of whether it's an insurance premium or tax) will go down.

We regulate the profits of utilities already. Without all that wasted money going to CEO pay, inflated profits, insurance overhead, excessive pay for doctors, prescriptions and patented technology, etc. we'd save a bundle.

[geek tragedy]

20. Who would put together the computer systems for the new national government-run

healthcare system?

[B2G]

17. "Jerks"

Nice. This is more about the decline of income rather than the character of the American people.

But do carry on.

[Cali_Democrat]

32. You overestimate the character of the American people

Many Americans are rotten to the core.

[B2G]

33. More are not

I am witnessing the outpouring of love and support in the wake of the Illinois tornados as we speak. I don't have it in me to be as cynical as you at the moment.