Now I’m 42 and never been married, so I don’t agree with most Americans about the very last question on this new Harris/WSJ survey. But the rest of it shows that we’re a damn site more of a liberal nation than our leaders in DC and on Fox News would have us believe.
On the other hand there is some chance that one day we’ll have universal health insurance, which is not the case for abstinence before marriage, whatever 62% of Americans believe. How many hypocrites are in that number?
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I guess health is always a big deal nowadays. A lot of people are engaging in different methods to stay healthy. Some even secure their health through insurance. Perhaps the times right now are not really that suitable for our health.
//how much people would be prepared to pay//
I bet most people who are middle to low income would deal with this as they deal with most problems they feel they can’t do anything about: avoid it.
The reason is that not only do people feel that any money that goes to insurance or govt. is a transfer of hard-earned income to someone else (to line executive pockets and support govt. waste as well as lazy people “riding the system”): they can’t calculate what a fair amount to pay would be in the first place because of the general feeling that health care providers inflate prices, and people with health care needs are a captive audience. And then there’s physician compensation, which is perceived as unfairly large. And the way I think about this is that young physicians have been getting increasingly higher salaries in the first place because of medical school loans. Therefore, part of the inflation of health care costs represents the transfer of income to universities (supporting their own adminosphere as well as the teaching staff). And on top of that there’s the immense technology waste that I’ve been pointing out: a good chunk of this money is leaving the U.S. all together, re: international consulting agencies like Covansys and Infosys.
People understand there are a lot of complex factors that go into the price of health care (and I hope they realize shifting the blame to poor people going to Emergency Rooms is a distraction from the other factors). So they are in a position where they can’t believe the price, but they don’t have the means (or the time) to calculate what that price should be. Therefore, they complain and hope someone will come along who understands all the factors, has the time and interest to come up with a plan, isn’t trying to rip people off him/herself, and has the ability to persuade a great mass of people who are functioning on knee-jerk reactions. Basically, a miracle of Biblical proportions.
Seems to me no one would ever be “against” coverage, insurance, health care, etc. It’s paying for it that is usually the hangup. So I’m not so sure what the poll really shows – at least as to the insurance questions.
Insurance schemes are particularly confusing in that respect, because so many people resent the cost of insurance. IMO this is because so many people regard insurance as a mechanism by which someone else can be obliged to pay for the majority of their cost, so it just should not cost very much. Interestingly, IMO, perhaps even more people view government in the same way. So insurance and goverenment make a natural couple, no?
Anyway, it would have been nice to see just one little question in the poll that asked how much people would be prepared to pay for the insurance policies polled.
When we eventually phase out civil marriage, which seems to be petering out into nothing more than a tax break and a prereq for divorce, I wonder if the idea of a fixed time of abstinence will disappear all together?
…and, uh, health care is good. 😉