Americans are making a big mistake about health care

[n2doc]

Updated by Matthew Yglesias

If you want to understand the politics of health care in the United States, you really need to understand this finding from a recent Economist/YouGov poll that shows why it's so difficult for wonky ideas — of either a left-wing or right-wing slant — to gain much toehold with the American people.
(poll shows most people don't think their health care is subsidized)
The way people in the policy community see it, this is totally backwards. Almost everyone who has health insurance in the United States gets help from the government to afford it. For the elderly, that's Medicare. For the disabled and the poor, that's Medicaid. For full-time workers it's the tax subsidy for employer-provided health insurance.

Some of what you see in this poll is a simple misunderstanding — older Americans either don't know what Medicare is or mistakenly believe they have "paid for" their benefits with earlier taxes.

But Americans who get insurance from their jobs are also benefitting from a massive government program. A program whose existence is hidden from sight but is nonetheless quite real and substantial.

more

http://www.vox.com/2015/3/1/8125785/insurance-subsidy-poll

[BlueJazz]

1. I'd like to see your post on billboards all across the land. Might open some eyes/minds.

[dickthegrouch]

2. It's a chicken and egg thing though

Which came first: ridiculously high prices, or subsidies?

When the exact same pill costs a fraction of the amount if you travel 20 miles over a border out of the US, it is *really* difficult to say that only lack of knowledge of the subsidies cause the problem.