Single Payer. Now.

[gadjitfreek]

Run time: 05:38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lezeuMzCtAw   Posted on YouTube: March 11, 2010 By YouTube Member: MrRandomCitizen Views on YouTube: 34   Posted on DU: March 12, 2010 By DU Member: gadjitfreek Views on DU: 517

 
A substitute teacher in my school needed emergency surgery and he has no health coverage. We teachers are helping him out the best we can, but this shouldn't even be an issue. This illustrates (for the ten millionth time) why single payer is the only way to go...it's just a shame we have a Democratic Party that is too impotent, corrupt and spineless to do what needs to be done!!

[Cleita]

1. Very good except I'm not for a value added tax because it's regressive,

however I am in favor of a payroll tax and a corporate tax that would transfer monies paid into health insurance into the single payer fund instead. Perhaps a set amount per employee, maybe $100 each paid for by the corporation.

[gorfle]

2. I agree, but not with his tack.

The problem with the poster's tack is that he is missing the point that the people he is trying to convince to support single payer health care already perceive government-paid-for insurance to be enforced charity.

So asking someone who is against public option health care to support it because the alternative is to rely on charity will simply prompt a response that taxpayer-funded health care is simply enforced charity.

You will never persuade those kinds of people by such an argument.

Instead, I point out to them that we ALREADY have numerous government programs that we all pay into so that we can all enjoy the benefits of having them. Schools. Police. Firefighters. Military forces.

Then I point out that every other industrialized nation on earth has universal health care for their citizens. And if they can do it, why can't "the greatest country on Earth" do it.

Then I point out that the United States spends as much on military spending as the rest of the world combined.

That seems to score points. But you'll never score points on the charity angle.

[gadjitfreek]

4. We've tried that. Numerous times.

But no one seems to be listening. What really disgusts me is the absolute unwillingness of far too many people to look past their own self-interests. We used to have a sense of community and an investment in the well-being of each other. We don't have that any more. We have insulated ourselves from other people and only want something if it directly benefits us. My mother is against universal coverage, she says "why should my tax dollars go towards helping someone else, when we were poor no one helped us!" Wow. I didn't know the Golden Rule was "Do unto others as others have done unto you!" That's a totally backwards way of handling things. We evolved as an intelligent species because we were socially and community oriented. Now it's an evil thing to suggest that we all contribute towards the general welfare of each other.

I'm not trying to persuade the Tea Party crowd. That bunch is beyond persuasion. I'm not trying to persuade those who have already made up their minds and locked their opinion in granite. You'll never make an argument that can chip away at it. I'm just launching a plaintive cry that what is happening to my colleague is happening to people all over the country every single day and it disgusts me that so many people don't want anything to do with solving the problem, because it does not directly benefit them at the moment.

Others have more eloquently made the argument that you make, time and time again and look what difference it has made.

[gorfle]

5. I don't think we ever had it.

What really disgusts me is the absolute unwillingness of far too many people to look past their own self-interests.

What really gets ME is that these people are voting AGAINST their own self-interests. My Mom retired some years ago as a secretary making only like $20K a year. Now she has pretty good insurance still from where she worked, but if there is anyone who could benefit from universal health care it would be her and people like her.

We used to have a sense of community and an investment in the well-being of each other. We don't have that any more.

I'm not sure we ever had it. All of the people I grew up around, and certainly my family, viewed accepting charity as the ultimate disgrace. They expected to provide for their own food, their own place to live, their own clothes, and their own health care. My grandfather chose to die rather than leave the expense of heart surgery to his family. These kinds of people see charity as extremely disgraceful, and they are highly resentful of a government that forces them to give charity to others, even though they may give charity voluntarily on their own on occasion.

Wow. I didn't know the Golden Rule was "Do unto others as others have done unto you!" That's a totally backwards way of handling things. We evolved as an intelligent species because we were socially and community oriented. Now it's an evil thing to suggest that we all contribute towards the general welfare of each other.

I think what annoys folks like your mom and my mom is that they are tired of paying for welfare projects that they don't benefit from themselves, and that always seems to be the way of programs like this. You pay for other people to eat, but you don't get any benefit in helping yourself eat. You pay for other people to have a place to live, but you don't get any benefit in helping yourself have a place to live. And now you'll pay for other people to have health care, while getting no help providing for your own health care.

This is why I want Single Payer, and why I try and couch it as something that everyone benefits from, whether you pay in or not. Like schools, fire departments, police forces, and military forces, everyone who is able pays into them, and everyone, even those who pay for it it, benefit from it.

It's when you make programs that people have to pay for but can't themselves use that people resent it.

I'm not trying to persuade the Tea Party crowd. That bunch is beyond persuasion. I'm not trying to persuade those who have already made up their minds and locked their opinion in granite. You'll never make an argument that can chip away at it.

Well it seems to be slowly working on my Mom, as her emails are becoming shorter and shorter in rebuttal. My Mom is one of those die-hard "America is #1!" people, and when I keep pointing out that every OTHER industrialized nation has universal health care, and why can't the greatest country in the world do it, too?, she has no response for that. When I point out that we pay more for health care than other nations do, but don't have as good a quality of care, she has no response for that. When she tries the talking point that Canadians come to America for health care and I point out that yes, RICH PEOPLE can go ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD for their health care, she has no response for that.

The biggest hurdle, though, that I see, is the perception that health care reform means just picking up the tab for poor people. And right now that's the way health care reform seems to be shaping up. Most people will continue to buy from private health insurance companies, and poor people will get either government-run insurance, or government subsidies, either way paid by the rest of the taxpayers who are still saddled paying for their own health care through other means. This plan is going to go down in flames. Progressives and Conservatives hate it.

[pundaint]

3. Strong reasons for single payer weak funding approach

Value added tax works fine in a manufacturing economy. Wall Street and the corporations have made us a smoke and mirrors economy. We really do not create enough actual value anymore to base a sufficient tax levy on.

The only way to make that fair would be to tax every bit of asset growth on a company's books as it occurs, and there might be some small push-back on that.