Because America is too damn individualistic in its culture and most Americans do not feel we are really in it together. Otherwise, they would demand that both major parties support it and refuse to vote for anyone who did not support it. If there were ever issues worth being a single-issue voter on, it would be this and ending our permanent wars (in the Middle East and Afghanistan) for oil and empire.

@TomMcGiverin It is not just individualism. Parasitic and demagogic right wing politicians have warped the thinking of too many people. As a result these people are terrorized by anything these demagogue label as socialistic or socialism. We have to provide a different and powerful voice which can be heard over the demagoguery.

I agree with your third paragraph. Tax returns though are based on what is deducted from your pay relative to what you actually owe. So people would just change their deductions accordingly. Or they would pay a penalty for ignorance.

I don't disagree with the logic you are espousing, but it's pretty ridiculous to compare the HC needs of the microscopic city state of Singapore with the US. I already pay a healthy (pun intended) portion of my own insurance premium (and I'm a gov't employee). More toward what you're saying (people paying their own healthcare costs), this would be far more feasible if there were true competition in the healthcare industry. The way health insurance has always been used is a crony scam and has the the effect of increasing costs since the job of insurance is to NOT PAY. Consequently, providers inflate their costs radically (have you ever seen an itemized bill for a 1 day hospital stay?) in order to make a reasonable profit. I would be in favor of abolishing healthcare insurance as we know it with the possible exception of catastrophic insurance. Eliminating insurance from the mix would force care providers to become truly competitive. This would drive costs down and quality of care up. I've read of some hospitals and clinics that have divorced themselves from insurance and their pricing is far more realistic. My .02. Overall, I agree with your comments. =]

Are you talking about sfvpool?...A conservative atheist, is still a conservative moron. His last retort, to me, was that it was against his will. The jokes on him...NONE of us were born at will, we're ALL here and had no say in the matter. This being said, we ALL are part of this and being selfish and blatantly so, helps no one. It takes the entirety OF society, to take care of the entirety of society; our children, our elderly, our veterans, our mother's, our father's, our sick (both physically and mentally).
Mr. Conservative embodied the trait that I most loathe, in a conservative society.... the mentality that screams "I got mine, FUCK YOU!".

@Seeker3CO Protecting individual rights: the police, the military and the court system. Nothing else.

What do you propose our tax dollars be used for?

@Seeker3CO I believe the US founding fathers almost got it right (allowing slavery, of course, was a big exception). Like the Declaration of Independence states, all humans have rights (among them, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness), and the government was founded with the purpose of protecting those rights. I believe, and history proves, that when we are given these freedoms and our rights are protected, we prosper as individuals and as a nation. I also believe, and I think the enlightenment thinkers would agree, that rights are rights to actions, not rights to the products of other people's actions. Which means that if the government takes from one person (taxes) to give to another (health care, welfare, etc.), it is a violation of individual rights.

By what I read in your comment and in my own personal opinion, you seem to be a very sad character indeed.

@Triphid I'm not sad. I'm a pretty happy individual.

@sfvpool Sad as in your seeming LACK of humanity towards your fellow humans.

@Triphid Would you think it is right if your neighbor was in dire need of an operation and he came to your house and stole money for the operation from you? If he was in dire straights, he could either ask you and others for help, pay for it himself, or steal it. What if he gets together with the other neighbors and they vote to take your money? Is it more right. I say no.

@sfvpool Why would any DECENT person need to steal from another when all they'd truly need do is simply ask?
I freely and willing donate whatever I can afford to NOT For Profit Organisations such as Cancer Research, etc, even though I live fortnight to fortnight on a Government Pension.
After all, as the adage goes; " He who seeks to steal or steals from me or anyone else ONLY steals from himself anyway."

Health care costs are collectivized whether you like it or not, grats, you're one of millions of Americans happy to have the most expensive, least effective health care system in the developed world ... so people like you can PRETEND you're not subsidizing your neighbour's health care.

@sfvpool I guess you don't drive on the roads, or use public schools either right?

@sfvpool so our only rights as human beings are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? And how are we afforded life without healthcare?

@sfvpool I'd definitely LOVE for my tax dollars to be used for every single person in this country to live well; instead of to the war machine, where all willing go to a meat grinder and get labeled a "forgotten" hero. No one lives well in war.

@nvrnuff Of course I drive on the roads and I went to public schools. I also pay taxes that pay for those things, against my will. I wish the roads and schools were privately owned, they would be much better and I would be happy to pay for using them.

@Triphid That was my point. If my neighbor came to me in need, if I could afford to help him and if I thought he was a good person, I would help him. So would most people, which is how it was handled before the government started stealing people's money to pay for such things.

@sfvpool Grow up

@Wildflower We work for it, or we ask for charity.

@Twisted185 Your wish to support people in need shouldn't be my obligation.

Who said anything about war?

Then why don't you claim an exemption on your payroll with holding, stop filing returns and see what happens? You could even go to a privately operated prison.

I believe you are a troll and don't even belong here. Go find yourself an island where you can take care of yourself without the aid of anyone else in a society.

So what is life... without healthcare?

Which is why I'm starting to think the "right" should start their own country.. they can then decide to keep all their taxes to themselves and see how that goes.

Your points are moot
Taxes already pay for healthcare in America: Medicaid and Medicare. Medicaid is for people in need.
Comparing taxes to someone stealing from you isn’t a logical comparison. You might as well compare an elephant to a lion.
We are nearly the last country on the planet that doesn’t have universal health care. So everyone has it wrong?

@darthfaja Yes, I know that Medicaid & Medicare are already paid by taxes. That doesn't mean it isn't theft, it just means it's already occurring. You should rethink your logic. What I said, if you read my comments above are very logical. Just because a majority of people vote for something, or vote to put someone in office that causes something, doesn't mean it isn't wrong. And, yes, every country that has universal health care is violating their citizens' rights.

@sfvpool have you ever compared private prisons to public ones? Same applies to schools. The only readon private schools can perform better is that their customers are the people with the most means. What a world where the only children who got an education were the ones with rich parents.

@A2Jennifer I believe that schools in a free market would be very inexpensive. Look at every industry that is left alone from much government intervention and control and you'll see that quality goes up and prices come down over time (think technology). The same thing would happen with schools if they didn't have to compete with government schools. There would also be much better education, with many options -- some cheap and some more expensive.

@sfvpool In the old days, before the Great Depression in the US, all charity and anti-poverty programs were thru churches and were modeled on the British system of the "deserving and undeserving poor" being screened and then helped, if found deserving, by the churches. I can only imagine how humiliating and cruel this system was. Then the Depression happened and the vast majority of Americans were desperately poor, so the old system was no longer feasible or appropriate to deal with the situation and government stepped in to take over poverty programs as all the old illusions of the masses about never ending up that poor or needing long term help to survive were all swept away. Suddenly socialism started looking pretty good to tens of millions of people, along with the idea of demanding that the poor be treated with dignity and the ruling class chose these govt. programs and new laws that gave dignity to poor people over the threat of socialism and revolution. Too bad how much of that has been forgotten and how the old ideas about deserving and undeserving poor are fully back in vogue.

@sfvpool You are clearly a Libertarian, a political philosophy that I hate. Partly because that group's values say that taxes are wrong and amount to stealing from citizens. As someone once said, taxes are the cost of having a civilized society, which is something I value having or trying to have. But it seems to me that Libs like you would rather we go back to some kind of feudalism, where a few people own everything and the rest barely scrape by as serfs, or robber-baron capitalism, which we aren't that far from returning to, because you want to have all the rights and freedoms under the sun, but don't want to share any of your money or stuff with others. Sounds like a very immature, selfish philosophy and that's why I hate it. Fortunately, society as a whole is a little more grown up than that. If you think not sharing is someday going to pay off and get the rich to let you into their club or economic class, you are wrong, as George Carlin used to say. They ain't going to let you in and those that aspire to it will always be wannabees.

@sfvpool "Protecting individual rights: Police, the military and the courts". That says it all, except you've got it wrong about those protecting individual rights. At least in America, those institutions have always been completely about protecting the rich and their property and their money and their power. You should read some Howard Zinn.

@sfvpool, @A2Jennifer That's how it was for much of American history until the late 1800s. Only the children of the rich got any formal education.

@sfvpool, @A2Jennifer, @hippydog I would totally support that and I'll go you one better. At times I wish the South would secede again from the US and this time, let them go! Our politics would suddenly improve immensely!

@TomMcGiverin I have read some of Howard Zinn and some of the propaganda he taught. I wouldn't waste my time. I have read enough history to know how he distorts it.

@sfvpool Ah, a true Trumper, fake news, etc. Zinn's book is all facts, carefully researched, footnoted and documented. You are a fool and a troll. bye..

@TomMcGiverin I'm not a Trump supporter. Have you read some of Zinn's footnoted sources? I have. Like I said, he distorts history to fit his agenda.

You call me a fool because I disagree with you? You don't know me.

@sfvpool actually it does mean that exactly as it is the society we chose to live it. If you don’t agree or enjoy it then move somewhere that better fits your values and morality.
Your beliefs are not wrong they are just unpopular and immoral. I work in healthcare and I see what happens to people who fall into the donut hole. It’s not pretty and it certainly isn’t their fault. They need help and we as a society should be helping them.

It’s truly unfortunate in the world we live in that we still need the war machine. It’s disgusting in fact. That alone could feed and care for the US easily.

@sfvpool Oh dear, I'm so sad for the manner in which you view things such as taxes.

That's what would happen. See comment above.

Yes, public healthcare would be a huge boon to businesses big and small.

@Druvius I am no economist but it just makes sense to me.

@BoardGameGal exactly.

@TomMcGiverin it wouldn’t happen like that. I’m in favor of public healthcare but taxes would be increased to nearly 50% compare to the 20-30% we pay now.

@darthfaja I am curious where you got your 50% estimation.

@patchoullijulie I don’t recall exactly. However these social programs need to be funded somehow and typically that comes from the citizens.
Here are some global figures

[financesonline.com]

@darthfaja Right, it does come from the citizenry via taxes but 50% seemed to be pretty high unless your talking about tax rates or taxes taken out for health care. They can be two different taxes, so far as I know.