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this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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Voters who are willing to support some kind of universal coverage never materialized last time this country had a nationwide healthcare debate. And those debates don't come around that often. Usually once a generation or so.
Many on this site might have been too young to remember. I was there. I went to the rallies and I also saw how support for universal coverage fell apart seemingly overnight. This was over a dozen years ago. Obama got elected and one of his big pushes was to reform healthcare. For years before this, everyone would always claim that they wanted universal coverage. They wanted something more akin to Europe. They wanted changed, damn it.
Then the debates started. On one side, we had well organized opposition led by right wing Republicans and funded by all manner of big businesss. This was the country's introduction to that nutcase Palin (funny how she is almost considered sane by today's standards). Conservatives flooded the airwaves with feel-good stories about how great out current healthcare system is while at the same time spooking voters that some kind of universal coverage would bring with it "Death Panels" and usher in communism and socialism and socialized-communism (whatever the fuck any of that is).
And it worked.
Those spook tactics had support for universal coverage almost collapse overnight. There were tons of protests in support of our current terrible system funded by Republican groups, but where were the counter-protests in support of universal coverage? POOF it vanished. I remember driving downtown with one of my buddies after work and we would find where people were gathering. It was mostly a bunch of stoners and college kids with zero direction and no cohesive message. It was a mess. We went down there a bunch of nights trying to rile up the troops but it was downright pathetic.
And except for some hotspots (like NYC) a lot of this just died down real quick. Obama was a pragmatist above all else. He could see the writing on the wall. He knew he couldn't get the support he needed to push for some kind of universal coverage like many claimed they wanted. We were not getting healthcare like Europe and that's all because Americans are just unwilling to lift a finger to help themselves. They are more afraid of an unknown healthcare system than the terrible one we currently have. They were willing to live with the devil they knew than the devil they didn't know. So in the end, Obama had to settle for the system that now bares his name. It falls far from being a universal system like Europe, but even with it's flaws, it is better than what we had before. He could still claim some level of victory.
So I am really annoyed when I see people today claiming online that we need Medicare4All or some other universal coverage. I'm annoyed, not because I disagree with those people, but rather because I know if we started up a national debate again to reform healthcare, those very same people who are adamant about needing change will sit on their asses on the toilet flipping through TikToks rather than going out there and protesting or calling their representatives or even voting for politicians who might support these reforms.
Sorry for the massively long post, but this issues triggers the fuck out of me. I'm sure zero.zero people read it.
let peopleThatReadIt +=;