[MontgomeryPy]

In speaking with my republican father in law on his opposition to universal healthcare, it dawned on me that he views it as a sort of zero sum game. If he has healthcare today, and then universal healthcare offers it to folks that don't have it today, it is a loss for him.

[wredcoll]

Something I've run into in similar situations is the "moral necessity of punishment", sort of a reverse just-world fallacy.

"There are people not good enough for health care and helping them would violate this natural order".

[kasey_junk]

It’s absolutely the case that public health coverage will benefit some people who make bad health decisions at the cost to some of those who make good decisions (or the decisions themselves must be made by a central authority).

That doesn’t make it the wrong policy decision. Lots of systems we happily manage with similar dynamics. But I don’t think denying that basic fact is the right path forward. The moral hazard is real and worth acknowledging.

[fnordpiglet]

This is going to be the ultimate issue if we do achieve some sort of post scarcity world where human labor is redundant. The idea that it’s not someone’s fault their indenture is unnecessary let alone a moral failing deserving of punishment is foreign to a lot of American thinking. The puritanical labor is godly mentality combined with the long term warping of anti Soviet propaganda is going to lead to some serious wide spread suffering that would take what should be the greatest achievement of man kind and turn it into a scourge.