WHY DON´T AMERICANS WANT UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE?

I don't understand it either. But there's a lot of money being thrown around by private insurance companies to make sure they are. Karkondrite said it all best, it's an individualistic society and Americans are always paranoid about government involvement and losing their free speech.

Despite this, universal care means more access to preventative care. Preventative care means fewer complications in the future (more expensive and devastating to deal with).

Society pays for unhealthy citizens with reduced productivity, lost working hours and poorer quality of life.

Despite those who say the current system is better:

- US has higher infant mortality than countries with universal care

- US performs lower in studies of overall health than countries with universal care

- US spends 40% more per person than countries with universal care

- private companies spend 30% on admin and profits while medicare spends 3%

- there's also the ethical implications of letting people fall between the cracks

The US the only industrialized nation that doesn't guarantee access to health care as a right of citizenship.

Why does a country with the most highly trained health care providers and best medical infrastructure rank so low on performance?

Because they are lied to. First of all, Obama wants to make insurance more available to all. And change the system so that it is cheaper, and also so that the insurance companies find it harder to get out of paying for treatment. The system he is proposing looks similar to that which works in Holland and Switzerland where private companies are involved in providing insurance. Second, of course universal health-cover sucks. That is why we in Western Europe have it. We think, hmm, our healthcare system sucks. I know, lets keep it. I guess that is the same with Japan and Canada as well. Third, Obama campaigned on reforming the healthcare system. He said he wanted to make insurance more available and he was elected by the American people to do this. FACT - the US has higher death rates for kids aged under five than western European countries with universal health coverage. FACT - the USA spends more on healthcare PER PERSON than any other nation on the planet. That means that a dead American four year old would have had a better chance of life if they were born in Canada, France, Cuba, Germany, Japan etc, all of which have universal health coverage.

I don't know how serious he is, but SmokeyD pretty much answered your question.

Americans naively believe their country is replenished with opportunity and chances to rise economically. Hence, Americans have a prevailing belief that if someone is poor, it's because he's lazy and/or stupid. So many Americans figure: "Why should I help dumb, lazy people?"

Paranoia is another issue. Americans immediately go on the slippery slope and say that if government gets involved, they can have access to our records, force abortions, not allow people with genetic diseases to have children, even criminalize junk food -- I have actually heard these ridiculous claims, I am dead serious (to my knowledge, Canada, the EU and Japan do not impose these type of laws)

The fact that Canadians, Europeans and Australians are healthier than we are just doesn't seem to register with many people.

Another stupid argument is that we're too multicultural. If we were more homogenous (like Sweden or Japan), we'd be willing to help each other more. But Canada, Australia, France and the UK are as multicultural/multiracial as the US, so that's another argument you can thrown down the drain.

Another unfortunate issue is that the Americans that need coverage often don't have time to make their voices heard; they're busy working 2 or 3 jobs, going to night school, spending their little free time with their children, etc. The people who think everything is alright have the resources and time to attend rallies and talk illogical, right-wing garbage.

Obama has said it clearly: If you're happy with your insurance, you keep it.

We should've ditched the South a long time ago.

i don't really know why,I know some say it will decrease the quality of medication for they will give you generic medications but obama said they are as good as the brand name ones and if they are not they will give you the other one all of these countries already have some type of universal health care:

Afghanistan*, Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iraq*, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Oman, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Ukraine and the United Kingdom

Some Americans don't want to pay for others, especially the rich ones.

there are a lot of lies and fear mongering coming from a certain political party

not to mention the private health care system is throwing LOTS AND LOTS of money at stopping it

It's mainly the old white ones, who get false information off fox news, and their uninformed children who are causing all the commotion.

Because we are in a recession !

The quality of our health care will significantly decrease.

The consequences of universal healthcare far outweigh the benefits.

I don't want to support poor people. Screw them. Get a job losers!