In my opinion, universal health care will do more to help the economy than any stimulus package ever could. If people aren't spending so much on healthcare, they will spend it elsewhere. That being said, we will still pay, just through taxes instead of direct costs. Hopefully the system will be made more efficient so that costs decrease from what they are now.

Try taking a close look at how the US budget actually breaks down. It's quite a task since it's an enormous budget. But, if you boil it down to a pie chart, you'll find that we spend an absurd amount on "defense", most of which is wasted. You'll also find that Congress will routinely spend enormous sums of money - in the trillions - on things that aren't health care (e.g. wars & combat, economic bailouts, etc.), without ever asking how it can be afforded, and it doesn't cause the whole system to come crashing down.

It's about priorities, and finding legislators to elect who share the correct ones. I believe that we'll get there, slowly, one funeral at a time.

We do that in Germany too. On top of (much) higher income taxes, (much) higher sales tax and plenty of extra taxes on products. Health insurance is "free" as in "you pay ~7% of your income and your employer matches it".

There's no such thing as a free lunch or free healthcare.

Plenty of Americans "have insurance", but if you go (or are taken via an ambulance) to the 'wrong hospital' you're not covered. Even if you go to the correct hospital, but are treated by the 'wrong doctor' you also may not be covered:

* https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/09/23/out-of-net...

Do a search for "out of network hospital" or "out of network doctor". So yes, the health coverage in Germany is certainly not "free", but you're actually covered. Just because you pay your premiums in the US does not necessarily mean much.

Depends on your insurance, but obviously lower than in the US. I don't know what US-insurance companies usually cover, public health care in Germany is so-so, e.g. if you need glasses, they won't pay, so you've have to pay for those yourself.

The US system certainly has plenty of issues, and I'm not saying that European systems aren't superior, I'm just saying that we pay much more. This obviously has a smaller effect in low-income people as their healthcare, social benefits etc will be subsidized by others, but if you're working in a high-skill profession, you'll take home a lot less of your paycheck than in the US.

Unless the high earners in the US are fine with significantly reducing their net income, I don't think you'll find a lot of support.

Americans are already paying for it: it's just that their premiums are going to private companies instead of a government agency. The money is coming out of your pocket either way so what difference does it make whether it is labelled as "tax" or "medical bill"? That's just a form of mental accounting.

Also: you can have universal healthcare without the government, single-payer or otherwise. Don't Germany and Switzerland both have universal coverage with private, non-profit health insurance companies?

Germany has a dual-system. You get basic coverage with public healthcare, and you get premium coverage with private health insurance providers. Want eye glasses paid for? You need private insurance.

Doctors get a fixed rate for most things, and they exist mostly by treating private insurance patients, because they'll get 2.3-3.5x the rate from private insurance companies, while treating public insurance patients is close to being a net loss.

What about Space Force and the increasing military budget every year? How come there is magically money for that?

Thing is, the relative health of citizens of the USA tends to vary wildly by region. For instance, people in Colorado are far more likely to be very fit, active, eat healthy, exercise daily, and engage in outdoor activities than residents of, say, Alabama.

That means that free or universal health care, if it comes to pass, will be very unevenly distributed in the USA.

Based on primary returns, the electorate is still selfish and not willing to support a candidate who supports Medicare For All. The situation must deteriorate much further before the path to universal healthcare becomes unavoidable.

Based on exit polls, it’s clear the 65+ cohort is who is holding this up (although the 30-44 age cohort is culpable to a lesser extent, at least in the Dem primary).

Disclaimer: I received a few more years with my Mom than I otherwise would have because of the ACA. Universal healthcare is my hill to die on, most especially for my kids.

I’ve spoken to several at risk people who have written COVID19 off as a political conspiracy and not a real threat.

The trick is to never give up. More likely your opponent does first. The Grand Canyon is a marvel, but the water was what cut through it. Be the water.

[1] https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/medicare-for-...

Just as interracial marriage, womens’ voting rights, the legalization of abortion, same sex marriage, and the slow sweep of marijuana legalization and prison reform come eventually, this too will arrive. We’re just arguing the timeline, which is frankly insane we’re willing to wait so long to save the lives of so many of our fellow citizens.

Universal Healthcare means everybody is covered and there's many different way to provide such coverage. Canada's is not even a very common approach.

Without that easy-to-cross border, the political pressure to allow private clinics would be irresistible. The law would change.

It feels like covid might be able to push public opinion on many matters beyond the local minima.

"I've never seen a sky so blue."

Having outside entities manage our lives by force, because of our individual failure to live a prepared, wise lifestyle, causes us to lose freedoms we won in the 1770s. But it is not to late to begin now, and encourage others. There is so much good that we can do, if we are not victims of the advertising industry but instead think, have a direction, worthwhile goals, and humility while we patiently try. It is really worthwhile.

Edit: there are also other very good preparations one can make besides financial, such as basic emergency supplies and long-term food storage (wheat & beans keep well and can keep one alive), rotation, etc, without necessarily digging a bomb shelter. These and being without debt yield peacefulness. Again, more at my web site (no ads): https://lukecall.net send questions freely via the address at the footer.

edit: ps: if downvoting, an explanation could help.

Health care in the US is excessively expensive due to intentional market inefficiencies. There is a lot of research on this. Simply speaking the industry employs too many people. Consider the number of people employed due to medical insurance, medical equipment industry, pharmaceutical industry, medical administration experts, regulation, and so forth. Unless you are willing to kill a large segment of commercial medicine and put many people out of work this industry will remain expensive, and so long as it remains this expensive a universal medical service simply isn’t going to happen.

In the meantime the closest thing to universal medicine in the US is the VA.

We’ll see the same reaction that people had when witnessing extreme weather events: focus on the immediate problem, and refuse to engage with larger issues on the basis that “it’s too political”. For extreme weather events citizens and authorities showed an aversion to discussing “Is it climate change?”, and “How should we deal with climate change?”, etc.

I believe we are obligated to help each other (accountable before God), but not by force, nor by doing it in a way that the elected minority decides, because we lose freedoms that way (via taking more our incomes from us, taking and controlling the results of our work). Better to have freedom to do it even better, privately, or as communities, families, states, etc., when & how we so choose. States can decide otherwise, but no fed gov involvement. That is why we have the constitution that we do -- it is important.

Never underestimate people's idealogical beliefs even under strain.

"Freedom."

Edit: seriously, a lot of objection to this is that it's "socialism" (for some definition of the word/concept), and we all know that socialism is bad. "Just look at what happened in the USSR!"

Yes; you're making a judgment based on an exceptional situation (considered a once in a century occurrence).

Note that this a general consideration, independent from the the debate universal health care or not.

It's not. We've had at least 4 outbreaks in the past 20 years, and it's only going to get worse because our economies and supply chains are more interconnected than ever, and people are more mobile than ever.

Make the federal government work and then we can talk.

Giving a political answer since the topic is political.

COVID-19 is the first major crisis caused by laissez faire/free market/libertarian capitalism that the US has experienced. We had ample time since SARS in 2003 to be working on a vaccine, but right-leaning politicians have cut federal medical research funding since the 2000s (when I began seeing the connections between tech and politics). See this National Institutes of Health funding graph (NIH in green):

https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/2019-06/Disc-1.jpg

Background:

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2014...

Here is an article from 2010 on using zinc against coronavirus, when I first realized just how long it's been around:

https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/j...

So a great deal has been known about the virus for quite some time. But we didn't commit the federal funding to properly address it, because we didn't feel it was a priority, because it didn't affect us directly yet. I watched the same thing as a child when the powers that be actively worked to undermine AIDS research in the 80s because it didn't strike the members of happily married nuclear families.

Before we have the conversation about socializing the vulnerable sectors of our economy, I think we need to get to the heart of why we are so divided politically.

To me, it began when Ronald Reagan said "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help." That framed subsequent discussions as being between the people and the government, as two separate entities. But the US was founded on We the People. We're the government of the People, by the People, for the People.

Personally, I vote to start breaking down that distinction. I want to see our tax dollars at work again, solving real problems. Not going to pork barrel programs and unaudited black holes in the military industrial complex, and now the pharmaceutical industrial complex. We don't need twelve remedies for diseases of affluence like hair loss. We need hard research done by universities again, to find cures, with real money available immediately to free researchers from spending the entirety of their careers groveling for funds.

The way I see it, the glorification and defense of pure capitalism is misguided. Capitalism is a process, like evolution. It's the default position that groups of people and economies fall back to, like barter. It's a very efficient method for distributing goods and services. But unfettered capitalism eventually leads to crony capitalism, late-stage capitalism, monopoly and oligarchy.

An alternative is humanism. In a situation like this one, where we have to choose between eliminating 2% of our population or losing money in our economy, I would hope that we choose human lives over capital.

I'm aware of the benefits of a good work ethic, doing a hard day's work etc. We don't need to debate the basics of capitalism vs socialism, or point fingers that someone is lazy or getting a free lunch. I'm talking about the meta-level debate about the purpose of the US government and whether we should serve the public again or double down on catering to a small handful of wealthy oligarchs.

That is fine for goods and services that are not essential... but for health? It is a terrible idea now, as it was for firefighting 200 years ago.