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Originally Posted by JohnR
I am OK with health coverage for all citizens (Citizens Only!!!) and even single payer, provided:
Fix the budget deficit first
Plan reduction to national debt (how?)
Fix SS
If Government shows it can be responsible and do all that without cutting/gutting defense, I would even pay a little extra in taxes.
Currently, our elected Government has not shown well enough if it can manage its current responsibilities let alone manage new ones.
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We already had health coverage (health care) for all citizens before we concocted Obamacare. What was objected to was its reverse progressivity. The more you could afford it, the better coverage (care) you could get.
"Universal" health coverage, the same amount, type, and quality, of all health care provided by government to everyone regardless of ability to pay for it, is one of the types of socialist dreams which disincentivize the drive to improve one's life. Government universalization of necessities is basically government control of its populace. And it is a control which most likely will lead to stagnant mediocrity in the populace which will be more or less trapped in its "classless" position within the "masses," and will be dependent on its elite rulers. Of course, the elites will have better stuff in spite of "universalization."
Sure, if we can stop the universalization at healthcare, other things might not change. But the nature of socialism is not to stop at partial or limited control. What stops it, eventually, is failure. As you have pointed out, our Federal Government is failing even to manage its current responsibilities. It's solution is not to lessen those responsibilities (control), but to double down. Of course it will take on more . . . and more . . . until utter collapse and necessary revolution.
If we want universalized health care, would it be better if we left it up to the individual States to put proposals to their ciltizens for various plans? Wouldn't that fulfil the original plan, federalism, of States as the laboratories of experiment? Wouldn't that give us different perspectives on what worked, what didn't, or what worked better? My guess is that the plans which left the most discretion to individuals and the market would ultimately be the best and most affordable. And certainly would be the ones which allowed flexibility and opportunity for change or improvement rather than the stubborn doubling down imposed on us by bureaucrats.
And would be the ones which most distanced ourselves from the control of centralized bureaucratic government.