this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
74 points (95.1% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26734 readers
2125 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Let's assume we want all people to have health care. What are the steps / methods most likely to get us there?

In the U.S. seems like we're a long way from that goal. I'm curious about chunking down the big goal into smaller steps. Interested to hear perspectives from other countries too.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] LesserAbe@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Sorry, I think we're talking past each other. I'm not asking how the mechanics of the healthcare would work once a bill is passed. How do we even get that far? Our elected representatives don't seem to have substantive interest (a few bright spots aside) and while polls often show majority support amongst the public, the results can vary a lot based on how the question is asked. So big picture / long term just as a start we need more perfect democracy, and we need better awareness and advocacy of the idea. In terms of first steps and short term (I think regretfully a decade or two is short term) I could see an argument to implement it in a specific state, or expanding medicare for certain age groups or something like that. But I don't know! That's why I'm asking.

[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

Oh I see. I was literally putting together a list of the developments Cypress took when they enacted universal healthcare in 2019 and the Medicare for All bullet points to explain the initial steps more clearly.

You're actually curious how we can foment support for such a bill, if I understand correctly.

Ideally, you attend rallies and town hall discussions about health care and call up your senators and public officials and radically advocate for it and get enough people to join forces to convince politicians to vote for it.

Practically? We have two options. 1) getting lucky and voting in someone as focused on positive progress as Bernie or 2) in the United States, where economic dominance is the primary factor that shifts private interests, just like recently with sustainable energy, just like with transportation infrastructure, we're going to see the point where large corporate interests and our government simultaneously realize that they're losing capital ground to international competitors because they refuse to make progress on the key issue of health.

Once they realize that the incredibly cheap healthcare offered to first world citizens supports the interest of the upper class by keeping a healthy and happy proletariat is complimented by the international embarrassment of having the only wealthy population that often can't financially or medically survive a fairly innocuous malady like a broken leg or diabetes, we're going to very rapidly see sweeping reforms that will actually be taking a step in the right direction because the forces that be are retreating in fear from seeing the end of the road they're forcing the rest of us to walk down(they lose power).

It sounds bleak, but it's actually a good thing. Target will have big placards with doctor saying "and it doesn't cost anything!" putting a Band-Aid on a kid's knee, you'll see speeches by politicians about how we've always had the best healthcare system, and now you're getting better than the best, even though they'll just be playing catch up with first world countries .

But that's fine because our dumb system and the people who believe they control it will be learning. They're just learning the hardest, stupidest way, that doing the right thing actually benefits everybody.

I think the same thing will happen with education, we're already dumb as hell compared to other countries because we don't offer affordable education, and we're already past the point that we've lost an entire generation of professionals because of it.

TLDR: critical mass will be reached as other countries outpace us because their citizens don't die from colds, and those in control will change their minds.

[–] OpenStars@kbin.social -1 points 1 year ago

Have you watched this yet? The first 30s should let you know whether it's for you, and the rest may well change everything for you, forever:-).