Can someone explain to me how this can be passed off as anything but pure evil?
Beyond that, I think it's the basic philosophy that government should not be involved in funding health care for citizens (I think those high-risk pools are basically being set up to fail/abandon). I don't really understand it, because I don't see how the normal arguments of self-reliance and accountability translate to sickness, which is by definition out of our control no matter how self-reliant and accountable we are.
IMO the biggest elephant in the room is rationing. We can't give infinite healthcare to everybody for all their lives, particularly in very old age. We need to make hard trade-offs. In a free market system, the rationing is done by affordability and price levels: we choose who's more worthy of living longer by how much capital they've accumulated. In a more centralized system, we might choose to pay for interventions based on how much extra "life" they give, and ration by selecting a threshold for how much we pay for extra life year - this is how the UK NHS works, where life year is a QALY, quality-adjusted life year. But anything that doesn't address this elephant in the room, and appeals to emotions about the poor, sick, elderly, dying because they can't afford the treatment they need without considering who exactly we're going to leave to die and why, because we can't all be each other's caregivers for life, is intellectually bankrupt.
As per your claim on the NHS I'm not sure what are you trying to imply. Do you think the NHS or other similar systems choose to let people die based on economic reasons? Because that'll be a surprise. Disclosure: I live in the UK and grew up in Spain, where last night my grandmother passed at the age of 99 after A LOT of healthcare was poured into her (despite the fact she never had "a job"), of course paid by taxes.
Things get difficult when patients have longer term chronic illnesses. If she had kidney failure and heart desease the doctors who probably discuss a different care plan.
Like for existing drugs that are profitable but expensive to produce. Our industrial capacity is such that producing those drugs doesn't really impose any medical opportunity cost.
That's also the kind of value that people can disagree on, though. For as much as we might believe that it's unfair for someone to do all the right things and then still end up with the wrong illness and go bankrupt, for others that is the natural order of things.
Although it's worth pointing out that it was still possible (pre-ACA) to go bankrupt from health care costs even if you had done well at amassing capital.
Altogether I think that's why so many people see this as deeply distorted and unfair, the sort of thing that government should smooth out.
Why not just privatize the police, the fire department, the military, the national highway system, everything? Why is helping sick people so different from helping pay people to put out fires for homes that don't belong to you?
The "Just World Hypothesis". Many supporters, either overtly or subconsciously, believe that people get sick because they "deserve" to in some moral way. The universe is punishing for their sins, so why should taxpayers pay them off?
You can see an example of this worldview in this thread in fact, with the comment: "People who drive their cars recklessly and who speed pay higher auto insurance premiums. People who choose poor lifestyle behaviors (smoking, drinking daily Cokes, not exercising, drug use) were subsidized by those who 'drove safely.'"
In other words, I don't believe that they'll do anything like what you're implying they will.
I'm hoping for riots, but will accept replacing representatives through the voting process.
I'm pessimistic that this will ever be known by those in swing states, let alone cared about. I've traveled to those places and met people there. They have normalized death due to medical complications and drug addiction. Why should more people dying make a difference there?
Edgy though, you hit that mark.
That seems a little unfair. I'd say they're more insulated than stupid. But when people inside their bubble start losing subsidies and getting hammered with the true cost of coverage, that might be enough to break through to some of them.
Might need to recalibrate the evilometer.
But that's now what is happening here. There are some who believe that the government should stay out of healthcare (not me) and that prices will be lower, and care will be of higher quality. For them, repealing this act will move toward that outcome, which they believe to be good. There's certainly a philosophical argument to be made here.
On the other hand, people such as myself believe that a nation should just provide healthcare for all citizens because we can afford to, and if managed properly (questionable at best considering the US government) could be cheaper and result in better care and will help make the United States more fair.
So yes, I think it's quite hyperbolic to call the repeal of the ACA evil, and it's disingenuous to say that the repeal is simply "taking away health insurance from 24m people" as if that action is happening in a vacuum.
How about "profoundly amoral and uncaring"?
I am in favor of government run healthcare for a variety of reasons, but I don't consider the opposite point of view to be profoundly uncaring or amoral. In fact, I'd say that if you ignore that the intent of the ACA was to continue to entrench the government into the healthcare industry, it seems quite immoral to essentially guarantee corporate profits for health insurers.
Neither the democrats or republicans in charge really want single-payer. I think at least the republicans are more honest about it.
Yeah, that pretty much is what "uncaring" is.
So are you a hypocrite or callous?
There is a far larger philosophical discussion to be had. Summarizing healthcare as "if you don't pay for it you don't care about people who die" is either a political talking point of no value, or a lack of philosophical training and understanding.
...or merely not omnipotent?
I don't do anything for healthcare in Africa, true, because I can only do so much, and so donate money to more local organizations. However, I don't think that they should be left to fend for themselves, and do want help to be provided—and so am supportive of organizations that help.
That's a far cry from "I think people should fend for themselves", which conveniently ignores those that can't.
Painting people who disagree with you, especially if they have sound philosophical backing, as evil discredits my cause to bring healthcare to all people. If you want to bring healthcare to people, you have to find a way to get them to agree with you or change their mind. Calling them evil does harm.