Can somebody help me understand this?

[Ohiogal]

Why don't Republicans want us to have health insurance?

Before Obama came along, health insurance was alarmingly expensive. When my kids were still home, our health insurance premium cost nearly 1/3 of my husband's paycheck.

Then Obamacare and Medicaid expansion came along, and millions of Americans could finally afford coverage, many of whom had not seen a doctor in their whole lives.

But Republicans said, oh, no, we can't have that! Government doesn't belong meddling in health care! So once they stole power in 2016, they made it their life mission to dismantle the ACA, cut by cut until we have what we have today. Next they plan to make it more difficult to receive Medicaid. And NOW they want to take an axe to the mandate that all businesses who employ over (is it 30 or 50?) people that they must provide a minimum requirement health care plan! So, in essence, any employer of this size can just cut off its employees from company subsidized health insurance?? The thing is, all these cuts, and no plan or no talk of replacing them with anything else. Just, sorry Charlie, you're on your own. Don't get sick.

I honestly think that Republicans want us to all die off before we reach Medicare age, so they don't have to give us Medicare!

[wasupaloopa]

1. Insurance companies do not need all of us to make their profits. With only those who can afford

insurance on the books the insurance companies are back in control.

The problem as I see it is the insurance industry.

[LuckyCharms]

2. Seriously, your last sentence is the answer. n/t

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. You can have all the health insurance you want, as long as you can pay

the exorbitant premiums demanded by for-profit insurance companies, who use that money to overpay their CEOs.

[unblock]

4. they see the government as a big trough, and they want the feed all for themselves.

some taxes on the rich were passed as part of obamacare. they resent "their" money going to pay stuff for other people.

plain and simple greed.

they think their third luxury car is more important than the lives of millions.

[brooklynite]

5. Was this venting, or do you want an actual answer?

Remember that ACA didn't help most people, because most people HAD insurance (through their employers), and the additional regulations on the health care industry made those costs higher. Add to which, ideological conservatives (and some moderates) didn't believe that Government could do a better job than the private sector.

[Ohiogal]

6. I guess it was a little bit both -- venting and looking for an answer.

[Ohiogal]

9. If it's true that goverment can't do a better job than the private sector,

Then why is Medicare so well liked among seniors?

[cpmx2006]

7. Health care is a privilege in Rethug world..

Rethugs don't give a damn if the poor and middle class don't have health care especially subsidised by the government, in rethug world it takes money out of the federal treasury that they want to give to the rich with tax cuts. I am in my mid 70's and rethugs have fought against SS, medicare and medicaid every step of the way, to hell with every damn one of them...

[Siwsan]

8. One would almost think their goal is to cull the people they consider to be 'useless eaters'

You know - the poor, the disabled, the elderly, the infirm. In other words, the people they can't exploit for labor.

One can only hope they don't also come up with a scheme to also exploit the corpses, ala a 'Soylent Green' scenario

[dlk]

10. It's a Dark Ages Philosophy/Pathology Based on Narcissism

Everyone for themselves

[Cracklin Charlie]

11. There used to be a pervading sentiment...

That passage of a national health care program would ensure democratic majorities for fifty years.

Elephants are renowned for their memory.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

12. TL/DR: Republicans mostly view healthcare as a "privilege", not a right

That probably doesn't make a lick of logical sense to a vast majority of the population but Republicans have done a thoroughly effective job of scaring us into believing that having universal/government provided healthcare here in the US (just like most of the advanced nations of the world) would be one of the worst things that could ever happen to our country and one of the biggest threats to our personal freedoms.

[Ohiogal]

13. Yeah that always makes me scratch my head

when I hear them frame it as "losing freedom" and "liberty"

Losing WHAT freedom? The freedom to get sick and die?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

14. Yeah

I guess they think that some people want the "freedom to suffer and die" (and going bankrupt in the process) more than having to pay a few more dollars in taxes to ensure that they and their families can get healthcare whenever they need it without destroying them financially? It's almost like this imaginary "fear" that Republicans work to instill in people completely short circuits/overrides a person's capacity for critical thinking. And it's not even a fear that makes any sense in the first place. Either that or some people just think that they deserve their bad lot in life and think that suffering is the highest virtue. But I guess this explains how Republicans keep getting themselves elected over and over again. I once jokingly asked an acquaintance who lives in the "totalitarian" country of Canada how she feels living under the oppressive thumb of Justin Trudeau's "tyranny" and she just laughed.