This relates to what I was talking about this morning:
Majority Say Not Gov't Duty to Provide Healthcare for All
For the third consecutive year, a majority of Americans (52%) agree with the position that it is not the federal government's responsibility to ensure that all Americans have healthcare coverage. Prior to the start of Barack Obama's presidency in 2009, a majority of Americans consistently took the opposite view.
As I said this morning with regard to immigration, Americans want problems solved ... until they start being solved. Then they say, "What? This is part of the solution? And this? We don't want any of this!"
In the case of health care, Americans wanted it universal, government-guaranteed, unrestricted, inexpensive, tax-free, and free of other new costs. I think they'd have gotten a better deal with single payer, but that was off the table, and if Americans want it, they haven't made themselves aware of why it's off the table, i.e., which vested interests don't want it. (Americans won't confront vested interests -- that's so last century.) Then again, Americans probably would feel betrayed by single payer (omigod higher taxes!), and yet they don't understand that the politically feasible alternatives necessarily involve compromises and require deals to be cut. So they no longer want what they wanted.
Repeat across every other controversial issue, ad infinitum.
