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Comment by testing22321 | Hacker News Reader

I can’t help thinking this applies to universal healthcare in the US.

It would be cheaper and get better outcomes, but is still opposed because “working together is socialism”

Meta: downvotes to prove my point.

I had the almost the same thought. It reminds me of every time I hear Americans saying that they don't want their tax dollars going to the "wrong people" (even if the majority of support is going to people that actually needs it).

Meta: down votes here prove no such thing. If you are downvoted it's because you read the article that had nothing to do with politics, the comment on a vision of heaven and hell that had nothing to do with politics, and then you made it about something that is very politicized in the US.

Both the article and comment you commented on eschewed a trite political message and tried to say something real and human.

Universal healthcare is real and human. If we can't use an article to inform how we think about current problems, what's the point of it?

But the parent wasn't doing that. He was just taking the opportunity to dunk on his outgroup, by insinuating that people who are opposed to universal healthcare are selfish people who would rather hurt themselves than help others (which you will see is patently untrue if you actually get to know those people, but I digress).

If the parent had instead chosen to give a thoughtful response focusing more on a positive message (say, exploring how we should do more to help others and how universal healthcare can be a facet of that), that would've been fine. But yet another post of "my outgroup is evil" doesn't teach us anything or lead to good discussion.

> insinuating that people who are opposed to universal healthcare are selfish people who would rather hurt themselves than help others

Please educate me.

What possible reason is there to oppose universal healthcare?

Please keep in mind that factually it’s cheaper and results in better outcomes in every developed country in the world.

"please convince me otherwise, but keep in mind I have a very strongly held opinion that I consider to be an unshakeable fact, and by the way I'm asking you for evidence while providing none of my own. But it's a fact."

Just ask your favorite AI "How U.S. compares to others countries in healthcare metrics?" and you'll probably get a detailed list of how U.S. healthcare is more expensive than many other countries while ranking quite low in outcomes: life expectancy, maternal and infant mortality, chronic disease, ... (and also having part of the population out of the insurance network)

You are entitled to have whatever opinion you want on the matter, but that doesn't change the facts.

Sometimes people believe that if the US isn’t doing it already, there isn’t a better way, because somehow the best nation on the planet would be doing it already, it’s blind patriotism, rather than accept their might be better solutions. It why we care more about the flag or eagle than the US Constitution.

That's not a very charitable interpretation of his comments.

> people who are opposed to universal healthcare are selfish people who would rather hurt themselves than help others

Indeed that is the only explanation I have ever figured out.

The fact you think a basic human right is politics shows how much of a problem it is.

Developed countries don’t do that.

It’s not as simple as that and you know it. There are upsides and downsides to both systems.

Personally, I’d be fine with universal healthcare on the state level, but not the federal. The fact that I have thoughts like that shows it’s not as simple as “durr everyone deserves healthcare.” Of course they do, but a universal healthcare system implemented poorly means that everyone gets really bad healthcare.

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