“That’s what a dirty commie would say!” shakes athritis-riddled fist in pain

Plus, this is simply a poll of “what’s your favorability of the word we use to say something is when we don’t we don’t like the thing?”

I thought “tankie” was the new “commie” but maybe that’s just for DNC true believers because calling people with even the slightest leftwing ideas or who are skeptical of the political propaganda from the US a “Communist”, is too obvious Red Scare-style Propaganda and unlike the fans of the outright Fascist party, the fans of the Fascism-adjacent party actually care about keeping up appearances.

Of what use, then, are the American Communists?

They serve one function extremely useful to you and to the country, so useful that, if there were no Communists, we would almost be forced to create some. They are a reliable litmus paper for detecting real sources of danger to the Republic.

Communism is so repugnant to almost all Americans, when they are getting along even tolerably well, that one may predict with certainty that any social field or group in which the Communists make real strides in gaining members or acceptance of their doctrines, any such spot is in such bad shape from real and not imaginary social ills that the rest of us should take emergency, drastic action to investigate and correct the trouble.

Unfortunately we are more prone to ignore the sick spot thus disclosed and content ourselves with calling out more cops.

–Robert A. Heinlein, Take Back Your Government

American Elites and conservative morons.

Not all Americans. The majority have wanted socialized Healthcare for a long time, but actual political results rarely match the popular opinion here.

…and then piss and moan about fuel prices for their pick up trucks and SUVs with V8 motors.

Uh, plenty of Americans are black and brown

Maybe this is just my experience living in a red state

It is

Communism as a concept, or what the world actually got?

Because those are not the same thing.

Cato institute is not a very reliable source imo. Admittedly did not look up this study but this is TV news and they are in the business first and foremost of trying to frighten their viewers (never watch TV news BTW). Fox viewers would be petrified by these numbers. I’m guessing that perhaps a disproportionate portion of the sample was college students, city dwellers or even just people that know how to read. Ie. Not a representative sample most likely. Also, this is not the demographic politicians pay the most attention to.

Nothing wrong with the concept of communism. In practice it always leads to authoritarianism, fascism and the loss of personal freedoms. But look at the U.S. as it suffers late stage capitalism with a populist dictatorship growing - it’s exactly the same.

I don’t trust the Cato Institute, but Pew Research has some likely more accurate figures, at least for the socialism front, (with what I believe is a larger sample size) showing about 36% overall positive viewings of socialism, with 6% being very positive, and 30% being somewhat positive.

My mom had a spinal fusion in the 90s which she got in debt for.

About 15 years ago my lung spontaneously collapsed. Several surgeries later, the bill was $315,000. I was on Obamacare because of the mandate, thank god. I paid $19.

My mom found out and told me I “deserved to go bankrupt” because people like her had struggled for so long with their medical bills.

I don’t speak to her anymore

Obviously, transsexuals are a bigger concern. They are educated from birth the US has a superior healthcare system (by every measure, it does not). They are told that a lifetime of debt means they are good Americans .Also, most voters just assume one day they will be billionaires and never get sick.

They are under the impression that what’ll happen is that their paycheck will go down by the cost of universal healthcare per person because the costs are taken out via taxes. Then they hear that some people will get it who don’t pay taxes and they get indignant that they’re paying and someone else is getting. Then they think about the difficulties they have with our current system, and picture putting something like the DMV in front of it, since that’s what a lot of people have as their biggest reference for what the government does.

That’s all because someone has a vested interest in making sure they understand it wrong, and no one is going to make a lot of money off universal healthcare so there isn’t the same degree of motivation to teach people a more accurate understanding.
“Against” has billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs, and “for” has “human decency”, “efficiency” and “why are we doing this to ourselves”.

People hear that your paycheck gets a bit bigger, you go to the doctor when you feel sick, bills are mainly to keep you from going to the doctor for free aspirin and are lower than your copay, and you just … don’t deal with the billing anymore and think that sounds unrealistic. Entirely missing that other countries have done it, that the government already has a medical billing system, and dealing with paperwork is something the government does even better than “moving stuff from one place to another”.

Propaganda sold to us at an early age.

I have had arguments on social media with Americans. They are A) deluded, believing that paying a monthly premium and still having a deductible, that can be denied, is awesome because its tge best plan avaipable. B) are I got mine types, who have stated they got private insurance because they don’t want to pay for other peoples health care (they clearly don’t understand how insurance works) C) don’t want their taxes to go up one smidge, even though putting every american into a universal system would save so much money and would barely be blip in their taxes.

but you’re forgetting that the other countries tax you more when you are doing exceptionally. Policies like that lead to meritocracy and reduce everyone’s chances of getting a yacht.

And yet the same people won’t consider living in a better place for some reason.

Your pharmacy lied. There is no legal requirement to try to bill insurance first they presumably stand in many cases to bill them more especially if you cash paid only after coupons or patient assistance programs which are essentially coupons.

Thus they choose to follow this process and lie to you.

Guess what. I visit my doctor, for free, (or dentist for $$$) they give me a prescription, I go to a pharmacy and give them the slip, they take some time to fill it, explain how to take it, and then I pay a small fee (80% covered by employer health plan at no direct cost to me) and walk away. Canadian healthcare system at work.

Sure, I have to wait sometimes for major surgery based on the triage approach (most serious cases seen first) but it is painlessly easy to get the care I need when I need it. This is how most of the developed world works. Your country is cheating you.

If they don’t cover it, hit up goodRx. My insurance was fucking around with me one month, and I got my lamotrigine down to 20 dollars from 120 dollars using goodRx.

“Socialism is when government does stuff like laws and currency.”

Well, it’s not socialism but universal healthcare is a socialist policy and it has been won by various reformist socialist parties in most western countries.

I wouldn’t pay it. As of now, medical debt can’t hurt your credit score. When they send it to collectors, just deny the debt is yours. Refuse to give the collectors any info and don’t accept the debt.

But not all schools (university) and notably missing healthcare, apart from VA, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Electricity market is commercial but regulated by government, water at least where I am is government administered but must pay for itself out of its own revenue.

Folks are terrified there’s no fair opportunity to be secure in health, food, and housing. If they have confidence in those three things being securely in reach, then folks would be far less anxious.

Some of those things could be considered socialized, but they do not make our government socialist. Socialized welfare exists under socialism but that’s not what socialism is. Socialism is worker ownership of the means of production. You could even nationalize industries, but without unions, syndicates, or cooperatives collectively making the decisions it’s really only state capitalism.

They also don’t have good, compelling reasons to stay with the current system. They’re not getting much out of it, and the “oh, but the computer you’re making this on was created under capitalism” isn’t that compelling of an argument, especially when the alternative is choosing between eating, and buying the medication that stops your blood turning into acid.

The whole “system of true opportunity, where the best and brightest can shine” rings hollow when you’re working multiple jobs to survive, no matter how smart you are, and it feels like you’re extorted at every opportunity.

Yes indeed. For a lot of people it’s as easy as “current system bad, let’s try this other thing” and then they rationalize it somehow.

Personally I don’t think we have figured the right system out yet. And due to technological, economical and cultural development what worked best previously will most likely not be the best system moving forward anyway.

I’m all for trying out new things and see what works. A lot of what we do now obviously isn’t working and there’s so much counterintuitive stuff that happens that I say we, the people of earth, just try a lot of things, we have enough countries and subcountries that there’s room to test even things that seems like nonsense to most people.

Its tragic that the only way humans (as a whole) learn is when they themselves suffer.

I bet you get tons of free bonuses too: roads, public education, pensions… Damn, seems like this whole government thing is quite efficient, with the no shareholders taking profits and stuff.