Dec.11

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Americans Want Socialized Medicine

The ills of the American healthcare system are a hot topic at the moment, for obvious reasons. Earlier this week, Gallup released a poll on the subject (one that we have no doubt was commenced before the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson). The results are... very interesting.

To start, 62% of respondents said that it's the government's responsibility to provide healthcare to all Americans, as compared to 36% who said it's not the government's job. That's +26 for "government's job." This is not the highest number ever recorded, but it's the highest number in the past decade. On a related note, approval for Obamacare is at 54% (as compared to 38% opposed). That is effectively the highest it's ever been, essentially equaling the 55% approval/39% disapproval from April 2017.

This said, opinions on healthcare remain sharply divided by political affiliation. While 90% of Democrats and 65% of independents think that guaranteeing healthcare is the government's job, only 32% of Republicans feel that way. The Obamacare numbers are also powered by Democrats (71% like it) and independents (47% like it). Even though many Republicans have gotten insurance via the Obamacare exchanges, only 21% approve of the program.

What it boils down to, we would say, is that there is an opportunity for the incoming Republican trifecta, should the red team choose to seize it. Obviously, because of the Thompson killing, everyone knows that anger at the healthcare system is a bipartisan sentiment. This weekend, we observed that it was once the case that only Nixon could go to China, and it is now the case that there are certain issues on which Republicans have built-in political cover. Surely, healthcare is one of those. If Democrats try to expand Medicare or Medicaid, or to make any other changes like that, right-wingers will scream bloody murder about "socialism" and "socialized medicine." But if Republicans do it, there will be far less blowback, and the Party could consolidate its support among some independents.

That said, we are not holding our breath. Indeed, yesterday a group of 19 red-state attorneys general won a lawsuit that will allow their states to deny insurance coverage to Dreamers. Their argument, which was accepted by Donald Trump-appointed judge Dan Traynor, was that federal law prohibits giving benefits to people who are not citizens. So, they are allowed to defy a Biden-era executive order requiring that such benefits be extended. Blue states will continue to follow the Biden directive.

We must concede that, as much as we are wizened veteran watchers of American politics, things like this continue to confound us, for at least four reasons. To wit:

1. We continue to naively believe that people who claim to be followers of Jesus will have read the Bible and embraced the message of Jesus' ministry. Admittedly, our copy of the Bible is not the King Donald version printed in China, but we feel pretty confident that "charity for white people, but not for brown people" runs contrary to His message.
   
   
2. Per the terms of federal law, people must be treated for emergency conditions, regardless of ability to pay. Is it not better to have folks paying into the system, at least some? And, for that matter, to be preemptively treating emergent concerns, so as to prevent them from becoming emergencies (and, thus, much more expensive)?
   
   
3. Germs do not check citizenship status. If you create an underclass of people without access to medical care, you are creating the preconditions for an epidemic or a pandemic.
   
   
4. Republicans are pleased as punch about their gains among Latino voters this cycle. Don't they want to try to lock some of that in? We know the Dreamers can't vote, but many of them have friends and family members who can.

We didn't expect to be writing this much about healthcare this week, but that's how things go sometimes. (Z)