I am Turkish and have been wondering about this for a while as a political science and international relations masters degree student. Obama served for 8 years and still many Americans are complaining about how bad their healthcare system is and insurance prices are so high etc etc. Then why doesn’t any of them fix it. Here in Turkey, our leading party the AKP fixed the healthcare system so nicely that a lot of people from other countries are coming here for plastic surgeries and other healthcare services and the AKP party, as much as I hate to say it, fixed the healthcare system and now they are serving for their 4th term in a row.
Americans distrust government. We are indoctrinated with the idea that “Universal Healthcare” means that the government will be rationing healthcare. We are told that hard-working Americans will be expected to wait in line for care behind lazy, unemployed people. Propaganda tells us that the private sector can provide better healthcare to hard workers, and that only lazy undesirable people who can’t hold down a job are the ones who want universal healthcare.
Employers use health insurance coverage as a means of extorting workers to tolerate inhospitable working conditions. If you decide you want to quit your job, you are going to lose employer-sponsored coverage immediately, and won’t be eligible for replacement coverage from your next employer for at least 90 days. Employers are motivated to keep that “benefit” as leverage against workers.
Basically, when our political representatives try to address it, a whole bunch of misinformation and corruption combines to fuck us all over.