Reply to White working class acting against their own interests?

Forum Index » Political Discussion

Reply to "White working class acting against their own interests?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is a great question and has perplexed me forever. Why would anyone who is middle class or poor and in danger of losing a job or health care vote for the Trump. A rich guy who has gotten there on the backs of these very people, who will never think about them and only themselves. It is like they believe if they just get a guy in office that looks like them they will be just fine. Someone explain how people consistently vote against their own pay checks and families. Is it fear? Is it hatred? Who does this?[/quote]

It’s quite simple, really. 
Many of us in the middle class realize that the more “power” we give to the government in taking care of us, the more freedoms we lose as a result. 
Like the ACA - we essentially handed over the power to the government to mandate health insurance for all, and in turn, gave up our freedom to choose what plan suits us and our families.  Don’t need birth control?  Too bad, you’ve got it.  And, you don’t have young kids who need dental coverage?  So sorry, pal, you get it anyway.  
So, simply put, we value freedom more than we value “free things.”  [/quote]

Just curious -- what health insurance *doesn't* provide coverage for things you don't need?

I find most critics of the ACA are actually criticizing all insurance -- they just don't seem to understand how insurance works.

Also why we need a single-payer system.[/quote]

There are aspects of a single payer system that I like but as someone with a great deal of experience in this field it is not a panacea.[/quote]

I dunno.  Cut costs in half while people live just as long if not longer.  That's about as close to "panacea" as you are going to get.[/quote]

There is no substance in your response. Cut costs in half? Have you looked at the costs of Medicaid and Medicare?

As for living longer. Won't help. One of the main reasons we have a lower life expectancy in the U.S. compared to nations like Japan and Canada is obesity (over 1/3rd now) and that is a huge strain health care costs.[/quote]

Right, the fair comparison is against the cost of senior citizens healthcare.  :roll:

I'm going out on a limb that you can read a graph, but WTH I'll give it a shot:

[img]http://blogs-images.forbes.com/danmunro/files/2014/04/cost1.png[/img][/quote]

The chart is meaningless on it's face and especially as to your point of cutting costs. [/quote]

Why is the chart meaningless?  It looks like countries with single payer pay half what we pay with better results.  That seems very meaningful to me.[/quote]

The chart is meaningless because you're inferring a relationship that suggests healthcare spending drives health outcomes without clearly establishing that relationship. In particular, your chart attempts to find a relationship between healthcare spending and life expectancy. In reality we have a higher murder rate in the United States that plays a significant role in our lower life expectancy.  The fact that some drug dealer will be murdered tonight is certainly tragic, but it is at best marginally connected to our country's healthcare spending.  Yet you seem to be suggesting that the net effect of that drug dealers untimely death on life expectancy in this country is somehow related to healthcare spending.

Indeed, I suspect the relationship is reversed and it isn't that we get worse results for our healthcare spending but that our different lifestyles drive our higher healthcare spending. E.g,, many of the ailments that drive healthcare spending in America like obesity are caused by the way we eat, live and work. The idea that our healthcare system drives, for example, the obesity rate in this country is just stupid. It's where we live, how we get to work and what we eat that drives obesity in this country and the resulting healthcare costs related to obesity.

The health outcomes to healthcare spending is just an unsophisticated argument that sounds plausible on the surface but I just don't think the relationship is really there unless you actually believe that our citizens need doctors to understand that eating McDonald's everyday is a bad idea. [/quote]

I think comparing us to the UK is reasonable.  London is as violent as any US citizen.  Their citizens eat crap like ours.  But they get the same outcome with half the expenditure.[/quote]

Actually, that is not correct. Life expectancy in London is 75.2 years while non-Loneon UK is probably closer to 81 years. Yet the UK has a virtually uniform healthcare system. If you really believe that healthcare systems drive life expectancy, please account for the much lower life expectancy in London as compared to the rest of the U.K.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics