[Herring]

> Home ownership and the rest of the American dream seem out of reach for many people, and there’s very little safety net available when it comes to healthcare expenses, retirement, or just bad luck.

I empathize with the author, I really do, but you can't care about someone more than they care about themselves. If anyone has had the supremely unpleasant experience of trying to get loved ones to work out, they know. The last time someone (democrats) tried to tackle healthcare, they lost scores of seats all down the ballot.

https://www.quorum.us/data-driven-insights/under-obama-democ...

[godelski]

  > but you can't care about someone more than they care about themselves.

I just finished introducing Avatar the Last Air Bender to my partner. I'm pretty sure you have a lot to learn from Iroh.

Human history tells us that we don't make it through alone. We thrive on social structures and forming coalitions. Sometimes we get down and our friends and family put in work to pull us back. Your claim is the mental equivalent of "I can't lift someone up more than they can lift themselves up." Sorry, but if all they've got is bootstraps then you bet I can lift them up high into the sky while they can only lift themselves as high as they can jump. I'm pretty sure most people can't jump onto my shoulders and I'm confident none could jump that high and stay without support. Stop asking people to fly and look down at who's shoulders you're standing on

[saulpw]

I don't understand how this relates to the material. Because people can't get their spouses to exercise, anyone who cares about themselves should have to pay a premium to a private insurance company so they don't lose everything if they get cancer?

[Herring]

You can't get your spouse to exercise, and if you try too hard they might divorce you.

You can't get most Americans to care about anything they consider "socialism", and if you try too hard you'll get Trump.

[airstrike]

I don't think Democrats lost those seats because of Obamacare, at least not primarily so.

[voxl]

Why do you think these two things are connected? Working out is a personal choice that should have zero barring on how we care for and help one another. For example, someone shouldn't have less access to healthcare because they don't or didn't work out.

Democrats losing support can be explained by several reasons that have nothing to do with tackling healthcare. It can be the fact that it ended up being a weak half measure in comparison to the strong desire for a universal healthcare system. Or completely unrelated to healthcare altogether, like the Hilary Clinton scandal fiascos.

[antonvs]

They're saying that convincing other people to do what's in their own interests is very difficult if they don't care. Working out is given as an example: it's obviously a beneficial activity, but that's not enough to convince many people to do it regularly.

The claim then is that people don't care enough about having public healthcare (or are actively against it) for it to be a politically popular goal.

[jodrellblank]

> "the Hilary Clinton scandal fiascos"

"Why do you see the speck in your neighbour's eye, but do not notice the plank in your own eye?"

[voxl]

The lack of critical thinking skills on the internet never ceases to amaze me, like you having the gall to think Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama are anywhere close to having similar controversy surrounding their political careers.

[jodrellblank]

What does Obama have to do with anything? I was snarking at Trump supporters willing to handwave away 89 Wikipedia pages of Trump scandals "because of her emails"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Donald_Trump_controve...

(for reference, Hillary Clinton's list is less than half the size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Hillary_Clinton_contr... and she was never POTUS)

[Herring]

I'm pretty sure both of you agree with each other ...

[Herring]

It's not a factual statement. It's like saying "your mom's a whore". Showing her tax returns won't help.

The correct response is to just ignore/abandon them, which actually pisses off narcissists more than you know.

[t-3]

> For example, someone shouldn't have less access to healthcare because they don't or didn't work out.

One problem with this argument is that insurance companies disagree and nobody with any power in the US seems to want to move away from the "insurance provider" model.

[dartharva]

Had this been the default attitude of people, humanity wouldn't have progressed past the hunter-gatherer stage.