Yale economist John Roemer on the potential benefits of universal health care in the United States:
Suppose, for example, that America succeeds in implementing universal health insurance; that is, that voters in their majority demand it. A more pleasant society will then evolve: people will be under less [stress] from the fear of losing their health insurance when unemployed, or because they contract a major disease; emergency rooms will be less clogged with poor, uninsured persons; insurers will have incentives to urge people to undertake more healthy life styles (to keep costs down), and so on. There is a good chance that citizens generally will like these changes — not only because of their own increased financial security, but because civility will increase, and poverty will be, at least along one dimension, less glaring.
The horror. No wonder Republicans are freaking. People will generally be more secure feeling than they are right now, which means they’ll have less to react to in fear—which means that they’ll have less reason to vote Republican! The Republican Party lives on fear. Universal health coverage disrupts the party’s ability to gin up fear in people.
And all this egalitarianism is worse than empathy in judges. The Obamatopia must be stopped!
