one example of Americans’ cultural obsession with people getting things they don’t deserve (I think it’s partially @bambamramfan’s favorite Lacan stuff but not fully) I want to bring up is indeed healthcare related
when you bring up the topic of universal healthcare, people insist that universal healthcare is bad actually because it covers people who are fat and people who smoke. not necessarily that they’re a drain on the system to such an extent that they’ll break it, but that these people negatively impacted their health and will benefit nonetheless
there’s a lot of counterpoints you can make here. what’s a decision that ruins your health that means you need to go bankrupt because of hospital bills? Moving to a city and breathing poisonous air? Buying a car? Serving in the military?
Isn’t that just an intentional slippery slope towards “pre-existing conditions” nonsense?
Doesn’t free healthcare also cover free dietology advice so people don’t become fat in the first place?
Isn’t it absurd to think the only reason people don’t become fat or take up smoking is the expensive hospital bills, or that it even factors into the equation?
but honestly I want to focus on this ridiculous assumption that the real problem with healthcare is making sure people who access it “unfairly” stop doing so, and breaking the system completely to spite them
and honestly I’m no HAES blogger, but if you think that people reading wikihow guides to stiching their own wounds in order to avoid going to the doctor, number one bankruptcy cause being hospital bills, and hundreds of thousands dying from preventable causes is optimal because some of them are fat, your view has some glaring issues
This is partly an intuitive normie understanding of the free rider problem and incentives.
The issue is that while normies are picking up on a real issue, normie understandings are all running at level N=1. There are ways to manage the incentive issues, but only at higher levels of contrarianism/synthesis.
Also, I really ought to dig up that article showing that the effects of the US being some weird mix of developed and underdeveloped impacts the costs of healthcare. It may be a tougher nut to crack than it looks. (But man, would I love to save 5% of GDP.)