School choice also includes liberal parents pressuring the district to dump most of their resources into educational facilities benefitting white students while leaving minority students in the cold.
Was it RBG who argued that if the government could prohibit you from having an abortion, could it not be possible that the government could likewise force you to have an abortion without your consent? That was the reason to let women make their own choices.
Not liberal, conservative: It goes back to the origins of the Religious Right in fighting against segregation academies losing their tax-exempt status. Well, if they can’t have their all-White schools one way, they’ll have them another, and, once again, mutilate the idea of individual rights and local control to do it.
To the various posters who think appealing to patriotism or national pride would make national health insurance more acceptable to conservatives: if “what we’ve got is a joke, a shadow of what other industrialized nations have” persuaded conservatives, the U.S. wouldn’t have a skeletal passenger rail system with a small handful of corridors in the Northeast and California that vaguely resemble what the Europeans, Japanese, Chinese, etc. have in spades.
The conservative response to that argument is American exceptionalism: that comprehensive health insurance (or passenger rail service) may possibly work “over there” but it simply won’t work here because somehow we’re fundamentally different.
But how about Canada?
Canada is the only country that masses of Americans are not afraid of.
It’s not “over there”, and it’s not full of furreners. It’s full of white people who speak English just like us.
(By “mass of Americans” I mean the majority of middle and lower-middle classes, who don’t have a passport and have never traveled to any other countries–hence the fear.)
I’ve always said that the only way to sell good health care to Americans is to copy Canada’s system
And then, instead of calling it “socialist” or Obamacare, or Affordable Care–sell it to the public as “CanadaCare”
That would remove the fear factor. for most Americans
Then we could have a rational discussion, and pretty soon most of the public would accept it.
At the risk of derailing (no pun intended) the thread, there are valid reasons why Americans choose to fly from Philadelphia to Denver rather than take a high-speed train from Philadelphia to Denver. Logistics, geography, culture (which could make for low train demand,) etc. It isn’t necessarily about pride or lack of pride.
Errr…I don’t think so. A lot of conservatives view ‘socialist’ liberal Canada with suspicion and would hate to think that the USA has something to learn from Canada (even if it does.)
You would have to sell it as Better-than-Canada-care.
I was once discussing the public healthcare system with a friend of mine who is very conservative. I said that it would produce a major economic benefit. Our current system often connects people’s health care with their employment. I pointed out a lot of people stay in their job because they don’t want to take the chance of not being adequately insured if they or a family member had a serious medical problem. I said that if people were sure they could get adequate health care, a lot of them would be willing to take on the risk of being self-employed and starting up their own small businesses. The establishment of a public health care system would lead to a wave of entrepreneurship.
The problem with this approach is that you’d have to get through the many misconceptions that some Americans have about healthcare in Canada.
I’m Canadian, and on an American right-wing board that I follow, there are some amazing ones. Did you know that our physicians are all employed by the government, and that we have to wait for the government to assign us a family physician? The wait to be assigned a family physician is apparently six months or more. Should you need a specialist, you’re waiting up to a year or more, just to be seen. And you cannot buy your way to the head of the line, even if you can afford it, because “socialism.”
Of course, that’s all BS. Canadian physicians are not government employees; they are private businesspeople, who simply bill the provincial government for services rendered to patients. Canadians are free to select any private physician they choose, and to change physicians if they wish–the government has no part in assigning physicians. A specialist will see you on the double-quick if time is of the essence (as it was for me once). If it’s elective surgery, they might not, but anything lifesaving will be seen to by the appropriate specialist immediately. And hospitals are not government-run, but usually run by non-profit corporations or religious orders, the latter of which treat all comers, regardless of religion.
As for buying your way to the head of the line, of course you can. Just go to the US, where you can do that. Of course, you’re spending money for care you could have for nothing out-of-pocket at home, but it’s your money. Spend it as you please.
My point is that while I like your idea about “Canada Care,” you’re up against these right-wing myths about Canadian healthcare. You need to dispel them before you start selling any plan as “Canada Care.”
Caveat: I still generally like Americans and have a somewhat favourable view but…
Unrelated note from today’s paper: Canada’s opinion of the US at lowest point since this began being measured about 40 years ago.
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29% Canadians have a very favourable or somewhat favourable view of the US.
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was 73% (2010), 47% (2017), 40% (2019).
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Unfavourable view: 63% (2020), 55% (2019)
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Consider the US a friend: 60% (2020), 89% (2013).
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Consider the US an enemy: 11% (2020), 1% (2013). “More likely to see India as a friend of Canada than the United States.”
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Opinions toward China and Russia also deteriorated.
If the state can prohibit you from giving your kid heroin, could it not be possible to force you to give your kid heroin without your consent?
That is a dumb analogy, even for RBG.
The US is the largest oil producing nation in the world. There is no reason to ask another nations for oil.
The Election ‘This is a job review, not wish fullfillment like 2016. And with 200,000 dead and 20,000,000 unemployed, President Trump has shown himself incapable of doing the two things we expect even of our caretaker Presidents: Keeping Americans safe and keeping America prosperous.’
The Election ‘If I hired this incompetent goombah to manage my Wendy’s, right now he’s looking at a 3% drop in customers, a 12% drop in revenue, his incompetent staff all yelling at each other, all while purposely ignoring a disease outbreak in the kitchen! What the hell! I wouldn’t wait until November 3rd to fire his ass!’
Health Care ‘You know how health care plans get better and cheaper the larger your employer? Now imagine how good and cheap they would be if everyone was on the same plan. That’s single payer - we’re all paying into the same plan.’
Trump ‘Come on, you wanna reward the guy who tried to steal the game?’
Liberals seem to have had some success winning conservatives over on prison reform by approaching it from a fiscal angle - focusing on the exorbitant costs of locking up non-violent drug offenders and other small fry doing time for what are essentially victimless crimes.