One, great and free?
Why not let Texas secede?
They’d just turn around and declare war on Mexico. And we’d be obligated to get involved.
Some years later, we would occupy and control the newly acquired former Republic of Texas.
California could maybe secede peacefully, but I don’t think Texas can.
Plus they don’t want to, as mentioned above. A few online petitions are meaningless.
This is the craziest–no, no–on second thought, let them go.
Pack all the loonys off to Texas, remove everything Federal that can be moved, relocate the Sane up North, permit Texas to secede and abandon them (the loonys) to their jabbering Roundhead Madness.
Inside 6 months, Mexico will invade them, and teach them manners with the slack end of a rolpe. I will, of course, laugh my @ss off.
After a bit of searching, the various numbers I see for actual support hovers around 20% or so, with more among Republicans. Example:
So we’re talking about a smallish minority here, at least among non-Republicans.
Essentially it has been done in two states. Massachusetts chose a private-market, individual mandate model that essentially does provide UHC. It is not single payer, but it is universal in that basically anyone can get insurance if they live in Massachusetts–regardless of who they work for or how much money they make.
Vermont recently passed what comes very, very close to being true single payer. Under the Green Mountain Care scheme the State will provide health benefits to anyone who wants them. The implementation is not fully worked out, as the PPACA will require Vermont gets sign off from the DHHS on their plan since it will not be the same as explicit compliance with Obamacare (in Vermont’s case they’re going way above and beyond, though, so it shouldn’t be a problem getting an approval–DHHS already approved Arkansas doing its own system of health care reform slightly different from what the PPACA proscribes.)
The Vermont scheme does allow private insurers to continue operating in the State, but they are going to be competing with a “public option”, basically what we would have had under the PPACA if there had been public support for it. Vermont had considered a system in which all insurance was provided by the public option, and along with that there would have been a prohibition against providers accepting insurance from any other provider for anything other than elective procedures–but the Vermont legislature either decided that was too drastic or they just decided they didn’t want it.
So why hasn’t this happened in 48 other States? Because there isn’t political will for it, and it’s got nothing to do with there being a lot of Republicans in Texas. Same reason the public option was killed in the PPACA, that had zero to do with Republicans, because PPACA was passed with basically no Republican support at all, so the public option wasn’t removed to appease Republicans. Instead it was removed to appease the sizable number of Democrats in the House that opposed the public option.
As already noted, 2 states have at least made an attempt. UHC may or may not be inevitable, but if you want it in your state, why wait for the fine folks in Mississippi and Georgia to agree with you? Personally, I’m not that patient.
And think about what you just wrote. If there is no support in any individual state for X, why would you expect there to be support in the country, as a whole, for X?
Because it’s the epitome of dumb ideas.
Trust me, it makes you look dumb for being the millionth OP to suggest this. Since you’re not from Texas, I’ll give you a pass on not knowing how foolish this idea is.
If you were a Texan and were suggesting this to my face (checks what board he’s on)…hmm. Well you don’t seem to be a Texan, so we shouldn’t have to worry about that.
The 14-20% shifts based on who’s in the White House, it’s not a stable minority. This poll is from 2008:
It’s political theater, just like vowing to move to Canada if Conservative Candidate X wins.
Which did nothing to still the insane RW hate against him.
My recollection is that it was removed to appease Joe Lieberman and his patrons in the Hartford insurance industry.
To the OP topic:
“Texas is the only state that came into the Union by treaty. It retains the right to secede at will. We have heard them threaten to secede so often that I formed an enthusiastic organization—The American Friends for Texas Secession. This stops the subject cold. They want to be able to secede but they don’t want anyone to want them to.”
- John Steinbeck in Travels with Charley
I think there is new driling technology that drills wells at an angle, so we can stay out of their land and steal it from the outside.
Boy, that part’s true. Here in South Carolina (where I ended up in 2011) I must bump into Buckeyes every damn day. I actually think we might elect a second D representative in the next few cycles.
And even boroughs of cities.
Staten Islanders pushed for secession from New York City for years, but the rest of the city blocked their efforts.
I think it was something about wanting to keep collecting the Island’s tax money. Which is something people talking about letting states secede should consider.
Do you mean to say we can DRINK. THEIR. **MILKSHAKE **? Just DRINK IT UP ?!
What should be considered? That the remaining areas would always block a secession because of the loss of tax revenues? What if tax revenue wasn’t the biggest issue driving the two entities apart?
There’s a big difference between passing UHC in an independent country, and passing it in one state — open borders. If there’s just one state in the US that offers free health care, or even free ice cream, a lot of poor people will move there, which would put an enormous strain on the state’s resources.
So yes, I would strongly favor national UHC, but not for my state to do it alone.
Your state could easily close its borders, just secede from the union! Win-win when a state secedes, remember? 
I’d be disgusted at the thought of them keeping their NFL franchises.
When it comes to college football and basketball, they’d have to go find some Mexican universities to play with. They would be done here.
Thank you for that extremely accurate and fair paraphrase.
I don’t know about the college stuff (do we allow Canadian colleges to compete with ours in college type sports?), but I don’t see why they couldn’t keep their NFL teams. Don’t the Canadians have pro baseball and hockey teams that compete in the US? Assuming Texas seceded amicably they would be just like Canada or Mexico to the US…presumably on friendly terms, maybe even part of the current trade agreement structure.
Of course, it’s not going to happen, but the OP can dream anyway.