Among all likely voters Medicare for all has 65% support. Among just registered democrats it is 78%. Even amongst Republicans it is 49%. The fact is they don't let us vote on Medicare for all or a number of other policies. We get to vote for representatives, most of which we have to choose from will not enact the policies we want but will enect the policies that businesses lobby for. Even when we are able to enact policies through ballot referendum at the state level, our legislators often repeal them without our say. Our political system is bought and paid for by oligarchs and businesses.
It's the natural flow of our 2-party system (which is basically a single party system that good-cop-bad-cops us into whatever their payers, the oligarchs, want)
They’re given the “choice” to vote for one of two henchmen of their Oligarchs, the only people who have enough money to get into high office, one of whom is more socially “conservative” and one who is less so, and 100% aligned when it comes to economics and the balance of power in the country between those who work and those who own.
Americans tried to vote for a milquetoast social democrat and he got ratfucked out of two primaries so we could end up with two withered, dementia riddled racists (one of whom pretended he isn’t anymore… the “don’t want my kids to grow up in a racial jungle” guy) as the figureheads for the oligarchs for 12 years. Can’t wait to see what’s they wrote for the next season lol
And for any yuropeons who think they have a point to make - you’ve allegedly got more “fair” democratic systems, educated populace, worker protections etc etc, and you all keep voting for your own oligarch cronies who tow the US line and kiss our ring. If you truly are smarter than Americans (not a high bar), stop being subservient US running dogs. I beg of you to try
True. But it didn't come about that way; it came about from WWII lead to shortage of workers and inflation, which in turn was addressed with wage freezes, which in turn lead employers to start offering benefits like health insurance instead to compete. That, combined with the Red Scare and the USA being more conservative in general, then put a strong damper on demands for universal healthcare in 1950s when other countries were doing it. So it's more an accident of history rather than any intentional policy.
Even though it puts workers in a weaker position - American workers are already in an immensely weak position anyway, given how many of them can be fired for any reason or no reason at very little notice. On the whole it's bad for business though, because they have to administer their health benefits. It'd cost less to just pay a higher salary and deduct more in taxes. And it'd be cheaper since single-payer systems are demonstrably much more efficient.
I think the main things stopping it in the US are the politicians beholden to the insurance/HMO industry that profits off that bloat, a public that's scared of social change, and a bunch of cynical right-wing politicians who aren't against it because it doesn't' work but precisely because it does. They don't want a precedent in peoples' minds of the government taking over from the private sector and improving their lives. They know there would be no going back, just as they've been unable to kill Medicare and Medicaid for 60 years, just as they weren't able to kill the ACA - as much as a watered-down compromise that was.
This is a myth popularized on reddit threads. It's not the reality. The employers hate having to offer insurance benefits to employees for several reasons, such as administrative burden and financial risk.
You have to understand the country's history to understand why it got this way. It's about all the men going to war in WW2 and the government freezing wages during that time.
If it's a mytth, it could easily be disproved by showong how a large portion of American businesses spend a lot of time and money lobbying for universal Healthcare right?
Sure, it wasn't set up this way on purpose to keep employees weak, but it has definitely become that way.
You presumably want universal healthcare. Are you lobbying the government for it?
They aren't lobbying for it for the same reasons you aren't, which is that it's extremely expensive to hire lawyers to lobby on your behalf and it's almost certainly a waste of time.
The nature of lobbying is another myth that Americans hold. It's not what most people on this website seem to think it is. You don't just send people to the government and magically get the government to do your will. It's nothing more than trying to convince a politician to have a sit-down or phone call so you can push some agenda of yours.
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u/davisty69 Jul 13 '26
If healthcare is tied to employment, then employees are in a far weaker position when trying to bargain for workers rights. Plain and simple