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Comment by bradwood | Hacker News Reader

Indeed -- it still amazes me how a decent form of national health care is such an anathema for a lot of people in the US.

Most of us Europeans simply don't need to worry about health insurance at all with the likes of the NHS in the UK and equivalent (or often better) free national health services on the continent.

It seems a lot of ring-wingers in the US are vehemently against any form of national health service whereas in Europe, even the right seems to accept the benefit and necessity of national health.

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Many of us think the benefits do not outweigh the risks. I am opposed to virtually everything 'national' except military. In the United States there is a huge divide between the cultural norms of the city dweller, the suburbanites, and those living in rural America. That divide is even stronger on a state by state basis. The average San Franciscan has an entirely different worldview when compared with the average North Carolinan. The beauty of the American system is that each locality mostly has the ability to determine it's own rules while still sharing a single military and tax base. Certain tradeoffs have to be made to support such a system - meaning we have to put up with each others differences to some degree and potentially 'miss out' on the benefits of national programs. In the end, I prefer that about the US system.

During my teens (1990's) the anti-single-payer propaganda was strong, both at home and in talk radio. Once we met some young Canadians during a skiing trip when the topic came up. My relatives said it's easy to support universal care as a young person who doesn't need much care, or who can afford to wait a while for a procedure to be done.

While I appreciate the availability of care in much of the US, the surprise and ever increasing bills are a heavy price to pay. Other family have delayed retirement and had to plan major life choices around health care costs.

As with many issues, people on the right in the U.S. balk at the idea of their tax money being used to pay for someone else's problems. At its root I think it's a basic lack of empathy.

And it is even made worse when both parties are actually on the right, compared to European politics.

The elites and their newspapers and media teach them so.

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