oh we're really going here then. how many people y'all know who have died from not having healthcare? from having shit healthcare? how many people have you watched wilt away while you sit, knowing you can do nothing? how many friends have you lost to suicide, people you've begged to get help but have no answer for when they say they can't afford therapy, psychiatrists, or livesaving drugs?
i can't count the number of people i've lost on two hands anymore. and i'm seeing the inevitability of more joining that list within my family and friend circle as we speak.
68,000 people die literally every year from lack of health insurance and being underinsured. sixty eight fucking thousand people a year. so don't tell me universal healthcare isn't one of the most meaningful movements of the modern era. you can take that shit with you when you get out of my face.
In 1960 you had gigantic % of the black population in this country living under a thinly veiled apartheid state. Through the 1960s, the Democrats had maintained their coalition by making concessions to racist white voters like leaving black people out of FHA benefits, raising benefits for all, but making sure minorities got less of the pie. When the Democrats decided to stop doing that and challenge the Jim Crow apartheid state in the South, it cost them a gigantic chunk of their white voters, and sent the party into the wilderness for almost all of the following half-century. It turns out, unfortunately, a majority of white people have actively wanted to live in a nation where nonwhite people are literally second class citizens. The North won the civil war, but it lost Reconstruction, and the nation has been paying for that loss for the past 150 years.
The idea that the consequences of patching up our healthcare system to fill in the gaps will be on par with those faced by the party when they dared to reject white supremacy and were rewarded by a massive loss in political power due to white voters who were more concerned with denying benefits to minorities than expanding them for themselves is completely wrong. This has nothing to do with "meaning" and everything to do with the median white voter in America being a racist piece of shit who would actively vote to prevent UHC rather than letting minorities gain any benefit. Racism is the explicit reason so many things aren't to the level they are in many other countries w/ far more homogenous populations.
There are major issue with suicide, and I emphasize with what you've had to witness. I've had friends get addicted to drugs, and had to watch helplessly as their lives spiral out of control. Thankfully, they got sent to prison/rehab in time. Unfortunately, while UHC will help, those patterns of increase likely aren't directly related to healthcare at their core and will continue to be a problem that needs individually tailored solutions, as the increase in suicide rates specifically correlates with education and geography more than anything else.
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