Tweet is from around February 2022; I’m not visiting that cesspool to find the exact date.
this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2024
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Ok, so I completely support universal healthcare. However, it still is true that you are paying for "someone else's healthcare". How?
Let's assume that there's a flat tax percentage - 30% for all. (Actually most developed countries have progressive tax systems, but let's ignore that for now). The more your income, the more tax you pay. Therefore, some people pay more tax than others. This means, that some people contribute more to fund the healthcare system compared to others.
Some people have pre-existing conditions. Some people may just be unhealthy due to bad lifestyle choices. I might be incredibly fit. The probability of me falling sick would be very less. If there were a multi payer healthcare system, then perhaps I might not need to spend much money on healthcare. A universal single payer system might be forcing me to pay more for others' healthcare. Therefore, saying that I'm paying for someone else's healthcare isn't inaccurate.
That being said, healthcare is a human right. Every human, regardless of financial status deserves timely access to good healthcare. That's why I support it.
To reply to your devil’s advocate
Agreed. The ethical argument for universal healthcare triumphs everything else, assuming that we value human life equally.
Except the US clearly has a stratified society, even when it tries to lighten that with myths of fair pay, opportunity and get-rich-quick schemes (all the old American dreams before the post WWII townhouse family.)
Part of the rise of fascist rhetoric (targeting minorities like trans folk and immigrants) is to distract from the failure of these myths. Millennials and Zoomers know they're probably never going to own a home, or get to retire well, which not only discourages the Protestant work ethic (see quiet-quitting) but also elevates civil unrest (see the Great Depression).
So the Republican response is to kill elections and install one-party autocracy backed by a police state. That way they don't even have to listen to fellow Republicans, after they realize getting benes from being party loyalists are not actually soon to arrive. This is literally a return to monarchy, as Representative and constitutional historian Jamie Rasken has observed.
Well it also helps that it would be overall cheaper, with the only difference being that a few assholes wouldn't be getting rich off it at everyone else's expense.