What’s keeping people from demanding it?

  • commiehimbo@lemmy.world
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    31 minutes ago

    Capitalism, severely lowered expectations, mainstream news media controlled by the billionaire class pumping out capitalist propaganda. People continuing to believe the Democratic Party wants to enact universal healthcare when all elected Dems really care about is staying in power, doing the bare minimum, and raking in the cash from their billionaire donors. People continuing to vote for Democrats based on that belief when they could be using their votes to vote in anti-capitalist candidates from the real left (Green Party, PSL, etc).

    When Democrats are in charge of all of the levers of power, they say: “Darn there are all these rules we have to follow and the Republicans are obstructing us and won’t budge. Oh well, better luck next time 🤷‍♂️” while behind closed doors they’re listening to the health insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies who offer them money and perks and special treatment and job offers in the industry once they’re out of office.

  • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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    3 hours ago

    There isn’t an organized group for it, but there are organized groups against it.

    The two attempts to do so, in 1993 and 2009, saw little organized political activity in favor of creating a single payer system while there was organized political resistance against it.

    If politicians lose their seats trying to support a single payer system, they won’t be around after the next election.

  • Mulligrubs@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    In the USA, there is little corruption officially; that’s only because bribery is legal. Billionaires, Corporations, Banks and even other nations like Saudi Arabia can “contribute” huge amounts of money without even revealing who they are.

    Insurers, drug manufacturers and other interested parties “donate” many millions of dollars through these Super PACs and shell companies to keep things as they like them.

    The voters are too busy juggling low-wage jobs to compete with the multi-generational wealth accumulators; on top of this, they pay more taxes in more ways than any other generation before.

    Our representatives won’t bite the hand that feeds them willingly, and are legally protected to continue doing so.

    People’s standard of living and life spans are shrinking as a result. See Citizens United, Super PACs, Panama Papers and Pandora Papers for more details.

    There’s so much, unions squashed, down to 10% of workforce and those are mostly police and government ironically. Check out Patriot Act if you wonder why there’s so little organizing. The FED haha it never ends

  • finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    Because the politicians who could allow it are bribed by health insurance lobbyists to not allow it. There’s a lot of money at stake for a relative few people, and they’ll do anything to not risk it.

  • trackball_fetish@lemmy.wtf
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    5 hours ago

    We do demand it, they don’t give a fuck. Even with insurance you can’t get help. Can’t even leave this place without being rich. Land of the free my ass.

  • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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    4 hours ago

    The US government fundamentally doesn’t give a crap about your wellbeing. In fact if you die at 56 instead of 76 the government can cheap out of approximately 16 years of paying you a retirement.

  • greedytacothief@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    5 hours ago

    I watched a video today that said just the bureaucratic overhead of healthcare in the US accounts for 10% of our GDP. So it’s probably mostly just bribe money from the insurance companies keeping our elected representatives from doing anything in our interest.

  • BigTuffAl@lemmy.zip
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    8 hours ago

    “why isn’t the crumbling fascist imperial regime providing me healthcare?” is a question that answers itself OP

  • anon_8675309@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    Because people who have a job with benefits feel like they’ve worked their way up the chain to earn those benefits. People who work but don’t have benefits just don’t work hard enough. And let’s not even talk about those who don’t work.

    We need to divorce healthcare from employment.

  • black_flag@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    5 hours ago

    In order to understand that, it helps to look why we never got it to begin with. Do you think this system where we all suffer so a few can be rich was the first thing that came to mind, and then civilization evolved to be better so we got universal health care? No, people cooperated first, and then when communications technology started forming more centralization, started building a pathway to universal healthcare.

    But this is America! It’s a settler colonial empire! So of course it was the former slaves who were building cooperatives, and organized labor building a pathway to universal healthcare, and white racists with all the money and power to turn those systems of cooperative support into siphons for them to suck us dry from.

  • Horsey@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago
    1. Because conservatives do not want tax dollars going to people in outgroups.
    2. Because most Americans lack an understanding of statistics. You cannot use the logic that it’s cheaper to pay on aggregate for services through tax dollars, nor that the evidence shows that the monetary losses of a socialistic system are less than the gain. They don’t understand.
  • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    10 hours ago

    Medicare for all and legal pot both have had an around 70% approval rate for about a decade now. The government simply doesnt care because those things do not make the right people rich. Studies have shown the US gov doesn’t respond to its voters, it responds to its financiers. It honest to god never mattered what we thought.

  • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
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    8 hours ago

    because they gotta spend a literal trillion a year to kill brown people worldwide instead.

    • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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      8 hours ago

      This isn’t any exaggeration: it has been demonstrated using statistical analysis

      Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.