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greenpizza13yesterday at 4:11 PM4 repliesview on HN

The US is far too broken for such a thing to ever come to be. Politicians are bought and paid for, and the impact on the insurance companies and their profits make this impossible.

US legislators will never, ever, ever put the needs of the people above the needs of corporations, not as long as corporations can wield their massive wealth as "free speech" in the form of lobbying and political donations.

Sounds nice, though.


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stronglikedanyesterday at 6:29 PM

The US has gone through a lot of changes since it's inception, so there's no reason we can't change this. Preferably to a system where people have the freedom to pay out of pocket for whatever level of care they want when they can afford it, avoiding the "death panels" and extended wait times that exist just about everywhere that already has a universal health system.

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iambatemanyesterday at 4:21 PM

When I was a kid, my parents would say “with that attitude, you’re right.”

We can and should expect a lot out of the people around us and especially the ones who choose civil service.

Our grandparents ended slavery, got votes for women, established a merit-based civil service, fought fascism, passed equal rights legislation, and created the most dynamic large economy in history.

We have problems, too, but we are not powerless to fix them.

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consensus1yesterday at 4:20 PM

Nobody, including congress, gives a rat's ass about insurance companies and their profits. The truth is that someone has to approve or deny healthcare. Every universal system does it too, but by government policy instead of corporate decision. After the CEO of United Healthcare was gunned down in the streets for doing that thankless job do you think congress is saying to themselves "hey, maybe we should get into that business"?

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whimsicalismyesterday at 4:13 PM

I'm earnestly curious what the alternatives to CU look like and what that would mean for for-profit companies like The New York Times?