Yes it sounds like common mentality in US - "you need to deserve your spot under the sun". This mindset can push society to achieve great things rather effectively (as seen numerous times in the past with US), but it can also mean cruelty to fellow citizens because... usually money, power, status.

Everybody for themselves ain't a good model for a healthy society in long run. Way too many predators out there.

I'm a Midwestern transplant into the South, and a significant proportion of the anti-welfare sentiment around here seems to me to be incredibly racist, plastered over with language that has been carefully scrubbed of any mention of race. And that poisons federal politics.

The fear is there, but to me it looks like white people afraid that some black people or brown people might earn the same money for the same work, or get equal representation in government. And it's all apparently justified in the politically segregated religious congregations.

There's that "if you didn't work for it, you don't deserve it" attitude, but it also combines with "whatever you have, you got because you deserved it" attitude. It's very fatalistic, and completely discounts the possibility that injustice exists in society, and that some humans actively create it for their own personal benefit.

It also seems like more of the social bonding activities are inherently organized around pre-existing in-groups and clique-sorting than I remember from more northerly cities. I had been accustomed to events organized around public schools, their intramural organizations, public libraries, chambers of commerce events, and city sports leagues in public recreation facilities--one thing, open to all residents--but in the South, they have entirely different networks organized through churches and private clubs, which are heavily segregated by political views, if not by race.

This leads to a lot of information asymmetry, and irrational beliefs or disinformation propagated through channels that are difficult for outsiders to monitor. So white blue-collar workers get propagandized against unions and democratic socialism. They are constantly being lied to, and subjected to rhetorical distractions. Black people go to different churches, so they aren't as politically self-defeating, but they get institutionally disenfranchised instead. Having lived in Chicago, Illinois, I recognize political corruption, and they definitely have it here.

Thank you for pointing this out. Forced sharing is confiscation.

> made up numbers

And here lies the problem- you're using made up numbers.

Obviously if we can cut healthcare spending while expanding access while maintaining our contribution to medica innovation, that would be a great thing. People just don't think that it's remotely realistic.

Obamacare wasn't cheap

Medicare and medicaid are very expensive and don't achieve the same results that the private industry does.

Are VA hospitals as good as private ones? Absolutely not- and these are when the government has the opportunity to provide for a demographic that is a small minority of the population and is likely to have bipartisan support.

IMO- the only argument for socialized healthcare is healthcare as a human right. The idea that the government will magically become superior to private industry at spending money is completely unrealistic.

It's interesting to me that no candidate has seized on the chance to say that by decoupling healthcare from one's job, one would be more free to take risks in starting their own business

Just curiously asking, how does one pay for it if they don't have a job or lose their job? I think people should be less tied to their employers but how do they get coverage if they have no job? Who is paying for it?

A lot of people don't see/won't look at the cost of healthcare that their employees are already paying. Even fewer would recognize this as effectively the same thing as a tax.

>tax rates during or before the Reagan years

The tax rates people quote are not usually effective rates; they're marginal rates, and no one really paid them.

The Reagan tax cuts were revenue neutral - they cut the top marginal rates and removed loopholes. During one of them the effective rate on the rich increased slightly.

>When you look back at the last few decades you will see that republicans have decided that rich people should pay an ever decreasing share.

The middle class and poor have seen very big tax cuts. For example, here [1] are effective tax rates from the CBO for years 1979-2005.

The lower quintile went from 8% to 4.3%, effectively halving their tax rate. 2nd quintile 14.3 to 9.9%, 3rd 18.6 to 14.2, third 21.2 to 17.4, highest quintile 27.5 to 25.5.

The top 1% went from 37% to 31.2%.

So, you claim rich do not pay their share? What is their "share"? The lowest 20% pays 4.4%, the top 1% pays 31.2%.

[1] https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments...

In general you can check it here: https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=AWCOMP

Example from Prague, Czech Republic = an average IT position has it's total cost of employment (part is payed pre-brutto salary from the employer side) at 55k USD, take home pay is at 30k USD a year.

- this includes a social insurance (if you are let go, you'll get 750 USD up till 5 months of unemployment, if you go by yourself it'll be around 600 USD, and a promise of 1200 usd a month when you retire)

- health insurance on everything but non-diagnosed plastic surgery (like fake boobs and butcheek implants), dental and optician care

- salary insurance during sickness (has to be certified by a doctor, 1-14 day you get 60% of your take-home hourly salary for every workhour you miss, after 2 weeks this changes to 60% of you gross salary counted for every day of sickness (including weekends), after 30 days of sickness it increases to 66%, after 60 days to 72%)

- and of course tax (around 13% of total cost of employment) that pays for public schools, roads, etc

People would be OK if all their basic needs would be covered. If they didn't get ruined by single complicated health issue. If they knew that social system will help them out a bit in case they lose a job - not too much, just to help them bridge the gaps between jobs. If they knew that their kids are getting a decent education for free. None of this needs to be worlds best, just good enough.

Have this, and you have a satisfied population that won't revolt against rich no matter how little rich pay in their taxes. But from what I read here over and over, US currently has none of this for below-medium/median income.

I think the thing keeping poorer US population from revolt is this common mentality that success comes only from hard work, and if you're not successful, well you just didn't work hard enough. Rags to riches ideal, which as we know is rather a myth due to real social (im)mobility. But repeat a myth a thousand times and it will become a rule.