Comment by newfriend
14 days ago
This is a strawman.
"Rich" people don't want socialized healthcare because of perceived or real disadvantages of that system. Not because "the poors might get it".
Also the "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" is another strawman, used by those who dislike capitalism. People can and do support a variety of causes and policies without they themselves benefitting from them.
> "Rich" people don't want socialized healthcare because of perceived or real disadvantages of that system. Not because "the poors might get it".
That's fair, I should have said "because the poors might benefit". Rich people don't like socialized healthcare because they, by definition, will pay for people who can't afford it.
The problem is when people who will benefit from this identify with people who will lose from it.
> People can and do support a variety of causes and policies without they themselves benefitting from them.
They do, but here we're talking about the opposite: People being against policies they benefit from, because they identify with the group that will not.
P.S. I liked your comment, it was a reasoned reply that furthers the debate, thank you.
You'll find very few people who don't want poor people to have things and it's disingenuous to put it that way.
The two commonly held arguments against socialized healthcare in America are: First, a distrust that the government will create a system that is good and a belief that quality will decrease under such a system, and;
Second, that such a system would be funded by a large tax increase and that Americans are in general hard to get excited about tax increases. The financial concern is in the taking, not in the getting.
> You'll find very few people who don't want poor people to have things and it's disingenuous to put it that way.
I'm afraid your experiences are not universal.
There is a very strong streak of this in the US, significantly (though probably not wholly) traceable to the Calvinist roots of the Puritans who were a profound influence on the early culture of the country. When you believe that people's position on Earth is due to their level of deserving (Just World Fallacy), it's very easy to extend that to "and therefore we shouldn't try to help poor people; they're just being punished for being bad people."
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