I pay $15k a year health insurance for my family, it only kicks in after I spend $5k, and a doctor can say I require one thing and the insurance can reject it

"That's what a dirty commie would say!" shakes athritis-riddled fist in pain

Oh my God, we've finally yelled at Americans on the internet enough that after A H U N D R E D F U C K I N G Y E A R S conservatives are vaguely aware that there's some linguistic difference!

It does work, guys!

I thought "tankie" was the new "commie" but maybe that's just for DNC true believers because calling people with even the slightest leftwing ideas or who are skeptical of the political propaganda from the US a "Communist", is too obvious Red Scare-style Propaganda and unlike the fans of the outright Fascist party, the fans of the Fascism-adjacent party actually care about keeping up appearances.

Plus, this is simply a poll of "what's your favorability of the word we use to say something is when we don't we don't like the thing?"

Of what use, then, are the American Communists?

They serve one function extremely useful to you and to the country, so useful that, if there were no Communists, we would almost be forced to create some. They are a reliable litmus paper for detecting real sources of danger to the Republic.

Communism is so repugnant to almost all Americans, when they are getting along even tolerably well, that one may predict with certainty that any social field or group in which the Communists make real strides in gaining members or acceptance of their doctrines, any such spot is in such bad shape from real and not imaginary social ills that the rest of us should take emergency, drastic action to investigate and correct the trouble.

Unfortunately we are more prone to ignore the sick spot thus disclosed and content ourselves with calling out more cops.

--Robert A. Heinlein, Take Back Your Government

Americans see China and think: "Oh no, very bad because of socialism/communism"

But as someone who was born in mainland China (I'm Chinese-American), PRC is nothing "socialist"/"communist" at all, its a horrible State-Capitalist Authroitarian Regime under the guise of Communist aesthetics. I don't fear socialism/communism because they never truely existed, in fact, I'd say that Norway or Finland (based on what info I could gather anyways, never personally been to Norway or Finland so I can't speak from experience) would be more closer to "socialism" than PRC, at least they actually have a social safety net, PRC doesn't.

As for why Americans fear these terms, I think it's because, for some people anyways, you can get labeled as an enemy of the state to even uttering "socialism"/"communism".

(Legal disclaimer to the FBI Agent reading this, just in case I have to make this clear: No, I am not a "communist", as in, I do not support the CCP or similar authoritarian parties, I just support a more egalitarain and democratic society however you want to call that, and my views are 100% compatible with the US Constitution, now fuck off FBI, stop trying to denaturalize me, maybe actualy investigate the traitor in the white house, for fuck sake)

McCarthyism is probably the most succinct answer. The Cold War directly aligned us against the Soviet Union, and a key means of villainizing the USSR and its citizenry was to paint their core governing beliefs as heretical to the American way.

There is also no doubt in my mind that Socialism's strong connection to Union activity in the US also incentivized Corporate Barons to lobby against Social Politics hard. I have not seen any specifics about that myself, though. Modern lobbying efforts are well-known, though.

cold war and the red scare once performed never went away

I'll just refer you to the above graph. That fear is greater among the elders who grew up in the McCarthy era, and the unfortunates who listen to them.

It depends on how the socialism is used. US corporations, farmers and the fucking MAGAts that abused Payback Protection Program like it a lot.

The elites own the media. We're conditioned from birth to hate SoCiAlIsm/CoMmUnIsm/TaXes/ThEft/Etc. Repeat those terms 100 times a day over a lifespan and it becomes religion for 30% of the population.

If the government spends money on the little people, there's less money to bail out the Too Big to Fails.

Privatize the gains, socialize the losses. The United States isn't a country, it's a corporation with a military.

Probably stems from the Red Scare when people were rounded up and jailed/fired/blacklisted/exiled. It became the boogeyman. Through the last couple generations the fear around the word is still there, mostly because we haven't heard positive things (let alone the truth) about socialist policies in the better part of a century.

What Your saying is socialism, You commie!

American Elites and conservative morons.

Not all Americans. The majority have wanted socialized Healthcare for a long time, but actual political results rarely match the popular opinion here.

...and then piss and moan about fuel prices for their pick up trucks and SUVs with V8 motors.

Uh, plenty of Americans are black and brown

Maybe this is just my experience living in a red state

It is

Communism as a concept, or what the world actually got?

Because those are not the same thing.

Cato institute is not a very reliable source imo. Admittedly did not look up this study but this is TV news and they are in the business first and foremost of trying to frighten their viewers (never watch TV news BTW). Fox viewers would be petrified by these numbers. I'm guessing that perhaps a disproportionate portion of the sample was college students, city dwellers or even just people that know how to read. Ie. Not a representative sample most likely. Also, this is not the demographic politicians pay the most attention to.

Nothing wrong with the concept of communism. In practice it always leads to authoritarianism, fascism and the loss of personal freedoms. But look at the U.S. as it suffers late stage capitalism with a populist dictatorship growing - it's exactly the same.

I don't trust the Cato Institute, but Pew Research has some likely more accurate figures, at least for the socialism front, (with what I believe is a larger sample size) showing about 36% overall positive viewings of socialism, with 6% being very positive, and 30% being somewhat positive.

I do like the idea that they went around and asked people their age and if they said over 29 they went nope your opinion is invalid and walked away.

I'm assuming the reason that it's broken down like this is so they can show generational differences but I have to say I'm in my mid 30s and I'd like some socialism I'm not sure why the cutoff date had to be 29. Are there other slides where this information is provided?

My mom had a spinal fusion in the 90s which she got in debt for.

About 15 years ago my lung spontaneously collapsed. Several surgeries later, the bill was $315,000. I was on Obamacare because of the mandate, thank god. I paid $19.

My mom found out and told me I "deserved to go bankrupt" because people like her had struggled for so long with their medical bills.

I don't speak to her anymore

Americans are willing to give up everything they own if it means some hypothetical strawman isn't "mooching" off of their propaganda headcanon.

Success is suffering and hard work and if everyone isn't suffering then life isn't fair. Fuck this entire viewpoint, but it's one of the main American traits ruining socialist ideals.

They are under the impression that what'll happen is that their paycheck will go down by the cost of universal healthcare per person because the costs are taken out via taxes. Then they hear that some people will get it who don't pay taxes and they get indignant that they're paying and someone else is getting. Then they think about the difficulties they have with our current system, and picture putting something like the DMV in front of it, since that's what a lot of people have as their biggest reference for what the government does.

That's all because someone has a vested interest in making sure they understand it wrong, and no one is going to make a lot of money off universal healthcare so there isn't the same degree of motivation to teach people a more accurate understanding.
"Against" has billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs, and "for" has "human decency", "efficiency" and "why are we doing this to ourselves".

People hear that your paycheck gets a bit bigger, you go to the doctor when you feel sick, bills are mainly to keep you from going to the doctor for free aspirin and are lower than your copay, and you just ... don't deal with the billing anymore and think that sounds unrealistic. Entirely missing that other countries have done it, that the government already has a medical billing system, and dealing with paperwork is something the government does even better than "moving stuff from one place to another".

Obviously, transsexuals are a bigger concern. They are educated from birth the US has a superior healthcare system (by every measure, it does not). They are told that a lifetime of debt means they are good Americans .Also, most voters just assume one day they will be billionaires and never get sick.

Propaganda sold to us at an early age.

I have had arguments on social media with Americans. They are A) deluded, believing that paying a monthly premium and still having a deductible, that can be denied, is awesome because its tge best plan avaipable. B) are I got mine types, who have stated they got private insurance because they don't want to pay for other peoples health care (they clearly don't understand how insurance works) C) don't want their taxes to go up one smidge, even though putting every american into a universal system would save so much money and would barely be blip in their taxes.

but you're forgetting that the other countries tax you more when you are doing exceptionally. Policies like that lead to meritocracy and reduce everyone's chances of getting a yacht.

And yet the same people won't consider living in a better place for some reason.

Your pharmacy lied. There is no legal requirement to try to bill insurance first they presumably stand in many cases to bill them more especially if you cash paid only after coupons or patient assistance programs which are essentially coupons.

Thus they choose to follow this process and lie to you.

Guess what. I visit my doctor, for free, (or dentist for $$$) they give me a prescription, I go to a pharmacy and give them the slip, they take some time to fill it, explain how to take it, and then I pay a small fee (80% covered by employer health plan at no direct cost to me) and walk away. Canadian healthcare system at work.

Sure, I have to wait sometimes for major surgery based on the triage approach (most serious cases seen first) but it is painlessly easy to get the care I need when I need it. This is how most of the developed world works. Your country is cheating you.

If they don't cover it, hit up goodRx. My insurance was fucking around with me one month, and I got my lamotrigine down to 20 dollars from 120 dollars using goodRx.

"Socialism is when government does stuff like laws and currency."

Well, it's not socialism but universal healthcare is a socialist policy and it has been won by various reformist socialist parties in most western countries.

Can you not see them describing the government doing stuff?

I wouldn't pay it. As of now, medical debt can't hurt your credit score. When they send it to collectors, just deny the debt is yours. Refuse to give the collectors any info and don't accept the debt.

You would first have to convince party insider democrats to turn their back on the biggest source of funds in their entire history. From your lips to god's ears and all, but let's be real. It's not bloody likely

But not all schools (university) and notably missing healthcare, apart from VA, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Electricity market is commercial but regulated by government, water at least where I am is government administered but must pay for itself out of its own revenue.

Folks are terrified there's no fair opportunity to be secure in health, food, and housing. If they have confidence in those three things being securely in reach, then folks would be far less anxious.

Some of those things could be considered socialized, but they do not make our government socialist. Socialized welfare exists under socialism but that's not what socialism is. Socialism is worker ownership of the means of production. You could even nationalize industries, but without unions, syndicates, or cooperatives collectively making the decisions it's really only state capitalism.

Its tragic that the only way humans (as a whole) learn is when they themselves suffer.

I bet you get tons of free bonuses too: roads, public education, pensions... Damn, seems like this whole government thing is quite efficient, with the no shareholders taking profits and stuff.

European healthcare is something like 6k€ per year and person, the USA is around 14k€ (because leechers and parasites in the system).

Source: some graph on the internet.

We also obviously do mutualise the efforts so even the bum living under the bridge gets the same treatments. We all put in an effort according to what we can, as we are living in a society. What a way to control the masses in the USA. Horrifying.

They also don't have good, compelling reasons to stay with the current system. They're not getting much out of it, and the "oh, but the computer you're making this on was created under capitalism" isn't that compelling of an argument, especially when the alternative is choosing between eating, and buying the medication that stops your blood turning into acid.

The whole "system of true opportunity, where the best and brightest can shine" rings hollow when you're working multiple jobs to survive, no matter how smart you are, and it feels like you're extorted at every opportunity.

Yes indeed. For a lot of people it's as easy as "current system bad, let's try this other thing" and then they rationalize it somehow.

Personally I don't think we have figured the right system out yet. And due to technological, economical and cultural development what worked best previously will most likely not be the best system moving forward anyway.

I'm all for trying out new things and see what works. A lot of what we do now obviously isn't working and there's so much counterintuitive stuff that happens that I say we, the people of earth, just try a lot of things, we have enough countries and subcountries that there's room to test even things that seems like nonsense to most people.

Don't forget that ever since the other side has been trying to tear down that watered down version too, so what little people are given is always under threat of being removed

If I recall correctly, they didn't have enough votes for single-payer and passed the compromise that they could get done .

As a millennial, I feel great not being called old.

Please stop saying the military is socialist. Please understand that socialism is about the relationship to the means of production and not just 'exists because tax'

That's basically what an HSA is.

You sign up for a high deductible plan where you pay for your own medical expenses, but document them, up until you hit your out of pocket maximum ($8300 for individuals or $16600 for families), at which point your insurance kicks in to cover the catastrophic bills you typically won't have in a typical year.

Meanwhile, you are eligible to contribute $4300 per year for individuals or $8750 for families into an HSA, which has very favorable tax treatment (pretax money deposited, not taxed when taken out for health expenses, even after growing a lot), and allows you to invest everything above the minimum cash balance (varies by provider, usually something like $1000 or $2000).

That way in a year you happen to hit a $1 million illness or injury you're still covered against catastrophic financial loss, but you generally pay your own way with tax-deductible funds that you're allowed to invest for growth.

Until you get some kind of chronic illness and run out of money after about three appointments, then I guess set up a go fund me? You are required to be stabilized but not treated.

It's asking for sentiment individually, not a zero-sum choice.

Another thing to keep in mind is that many in America earnestly view Donald Trump as their chosen leader/ticket to 'socialism' that helps them.

How is a Swedish Swiss gun company and a date 75 years before Hitler was born a Nazi dogwhistle?

Mate I could say the same thing about capitalism. It's never worked in it's pure form. It never provides for welfare and naturally leads to wealth concentration and revolution. It always collapses. When people say they want capitalism what they mean is they want socialism with some carve outs for markets.

It turns out people generally want some things to be socialized and some things to be market based. Stop saying 'socialism doesn't work'. It's like saying 'carrots are bad for you cause if you just eat carrots you'll die'. Arguments like this are what got us here. Nuance exists, eating more vegetables isn't going to kill us.