The fight against universal healthcare has nothing to do with actual costs, and everything to do with employer provided benefits. If you need to get benefits from your employer, it requires you to take jobs that are less favorable or desirable, or prevents you from leaving your current one because you're afraid of losing healthcare.

It's both. Fewer jobs provide healthcare at all.

The bailouts weren't really socialism unless you define socialism the same way online right wingers do (i.e., any government policy you couldn't find in 1776 rural Virginia).

There is no rational reason to assume universal healthcare is going to work here just because the bailouts did. Apples and oranges, really.

A lot of the fear of universal healthcare in the USA is because the voters think people like the progressives in charge of SF will run the program into the ground. I personally am not opposed to universal healthcare paid by the government, but I'm pretty skeptical our current political leaders would device a system that actually works better than what we have.

> Ultra rich Americans absolutely love socialism ... for the ultra rich. Getting bailed out in 2009, having the central bank buy their broken assets in the bad times (they enjoyed the profits privately in the good ofc)

The much more obvious conclusion here is that socialism for the rich has insulated them from the consequences of their actions and has led to even worse behavior. Any reasonable person would conclude that socialism for the rich has been a catastrophic failure and should be done away with rather than expanded across society.

Socialism, first, is the wrong word - the state is not owning the assets.

And welfare for the rich and for the poor are two very different things

The rich will still be just fine after their assets crash with or without welfare for the rich, although they may lose some power - all this socialism is about assets far above any reasonable survival line - it's all about disposable income and assets.

Socialism for all is ensuring everyone has basic needs to function in a modern society - food, housing, healthcare, education. Above that line of basic functioning and nondisposable income, it should be up to the individual.

The government coddling the wealthy while trampling the poor is not socialism. I know there are folks who use "socialism" to mean "the government doing bad things I don't like" but this is a hangover from the Cold War, and it doesn't really belong anywhere near a civilised discussion.

>>The government coddling the wealthy while trampling the poor is not socialism<<

It's the failed, self serving, and corrupt program of "Trickle Down Economics" that's been used by Republicans and Democrats since the Reagan era in one form or another. It brings in the donor classes and benefits the wealthy, all of whom happen to be our politicians. It was BS when it was sold to the American people then and it's BS now.

Agreed. Socialism is defined better as workers owning the means of production. In "socialism for the rich", it is still the rich owning the means of production, aka capitalism.

> The government coddling the wealthy while trampling the poor is not socialism.

It's socialism, just as other forms of government. Nobles vs peasants. Is there a head of state that doesn't live in a palace?

I don't understand

Way to throw out the baby with the water. Inequality did not happen because of socialism for the rich. It happened because the winner takes it all, and the government did not do more about it. Without intervention it is natural for winners to gain access to more, and eventually all opportunities. The goal is to create opportunities for others too, if you want a healthy, sustainable system.

The government is meant to promote opportunities for all, promoting the rich is not socialism. Not to mention that socialism originally meant social ownership, that's also not something people want. People just want opportunities.