What’s keeping people from demanding it?
Capitalists control the political system of the US. Its not a democracy, it’s a capitalist dictatorship.
What health-care systems it used to have, were only to quell decades of worker struggles fighting for equivalent health care systems the USSR was putting in place in the 1920s.
the Hospital Corporation of America makes $70b+ a year
Why didn’t nazi Germany have universal healthcare?
What kept people from demanding it?
… because they did have it?
It wasn’t universal at the time, covering only the poorest workers, but Germany was the first country to establish a social health care system in 1883. It didn’t work very well during the war, but it was technically still there. Since the war, they gradually expanded it achieving universal coverage sometime in the 1980s.
Like most of these kinds of problems, the answer can be boiled down to a simple commonality: The people who stand to lose the most from things changing for the better are the same people who have the most power to influence the outcomes. The only thing that can counter that is a strong labor movement.
Now, there is a more complicated question to be asked about why US labor movements have been less successful than their European counterparts, but that I don’t have an easy answer for.
The second thing is actually pretty easy to answer. The same people from the first part of your answer have also been using their outsized power and influence to erode the power and influence of unions over time. Many actions taken by European unions would be considered illegal in America and met with violent state oppression. While Europe has maintained many of their labor rights from the turn of the 20th century, America’s labor rights have been rolled back to almost before the new deal. Most unions barely have the right to strike, and even when they can that power is exceptionally limited. Basically any effective labor action in the US would require people to accept that they are breaking the law, and will likely die, sustain life altering injury, or go to jail for it. Since most Americans that would benefit from strong unions are living in oppressive poverty to begin with they either see the risks of illegal labor action as too large, or have been propagandized against it.
I feel the unionds themselves kinda lost their way in the 80’s and only recovered in the millenium. Rather than pushing to lower worktime and expanding their ranks they focused more on exclusivity and bookoo overtime.
The powerful have convinced the masses that paying a single dime extra in taxes is just about the worst thing you could be forced to do, including whatever happened on that Island. So the common people are unable to reconcile that everyone paying higher taxes will make healthcare better for everyone. Normal people get to stay sick, poor, and rely on GoFundMe or die prematurely while the powerful laugh and count their money. It’s a fucking GRIFT.
Follow the money: the current system makes more sense for private insurers, pharma, and large healthcare providers who all benefit from things staying as they are.
But it’s not just about corporations. The US also built its system around employer-based insurance back in World War II, and now healthcare is tied to your job. That creates risk: leaving your job can mean losing coverage, which naturally makes people more cautious and dependent on poor employment. This also makes people more cautious about starting up a business so the economy becomes controlled in the hands of a few - and so more oligarchic
There’s also a cultural angle. In the US, “freedom” is often seen as freedom from government involvement, even if that sometimes means less practical freedom (like being unable to change jobs easily), and the individual spending more on insurance than they would on taxes.
So it’s not one single reason - it’s money, history, and mindset all reinforcing each other.
Rigidity and social control also show up in other countries with strategies like high housing costs.
If you dare to struggle, you dare to win! If you dare not struggle, then damn it, you don’t deserve to win! Fred Hampton
That is the problem, americans are weak, pacified and subservient.
Bad enough that they already resign in their ‘normal’ pathetic conditions (no healthcare, student debt,…)
Even the current regime can’t motivat them.
Near fascist, and still nothing happens.
No strikes, big riots, etc…
They have their little walks with their edgy signs, complain on social media about the bad orange man or go to their lame No Kings meetings.
There the fake-left Uniparty politician promises to make it all better.
You have to stay nicely between the lines, violence is bad and has no place in a democracy, simply wait a few years and vote for me next time. Trust me!
And they do.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.
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
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.
The only opinion that matters for the government is the opinion of the 1%.
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.
Yep
A video about it- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfQij4aQq1k
“why isn’t the crumbling fascist imperial regime providing me healthcare?” is a question that answers itself OP
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.
A plan to fix this - https://represent.us/
A video about it- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfQij4aQq1k
Congress represents capitalists and works for them, not the working classes. Any plan that cannot address the class conflict and the nature of the capitalist state instruments to uphold their class interests is doomed to fail.
There is no current organization of the working class to counter capitalist demands. Without organization, the working class will be kept powerless.
Sure, that’s what orgs like PSL are doing.
Given that I don’t know what the acronym is, they aren’t doing a great job.
All of the working class has part of the responsibility for the lack of organization, not just the organizations, it’s a two way relationship. PSL is trying a lot so that even myself that isn’t from the USA knows them, perhaps you not knowing that acronym is a fault in your own part.
All of the working class has part of the responsibility for the lack of organization
The time I tried applying they ghosted me for over a month, then I finally got an interview, and they ghosted me after that indefinitely. Later the same chapter defended a cop arresting a protestor against a rearrest which upset a lot of smaller leftist orgs (keep in mind this is the same general area the Prarieland protest occurred), and now the national organization is promoting anti-datacenter protests with literally no context which I’m not sure how that’s supposed to help their popularity. Also their opsec is terrible as well, I mentioned that I have technical skills during the interview but they didn’t seem interested in that.
I know of the Working Families Party and that party has had some success either winning their own election or running as Democrats.
A major job of a political party is to organize. If a party can’t organize while other ones can, maybe I shouldn’t support the party which can’t organize.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation. They are doing a good job, but party building takes time and effort.
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Seriously? Because that’s money flowing in the “wrong” direction, that is away from billionaires’ pockets.
This is literally all there is to it, along with indentured servitude by tying insurance to employment on top of it. This country’s fucked up healthcare system keeps the billionaires happy and the people stuck appeasing them.
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.
