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Comment by E39M5S62 | Hacker News Reader

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?

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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.

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