… Two radical notions in the early 1970s, having a black president and permitting homosexual marriage, have pretty much come to pass – in terms of public opinion and public policy. But the idea that the government should be partly responsible for all Americans’ health care, not just care for the elderly and poor, has not.
To be sure, there have been steps toward more comprehensive government support. … But Americans’ resistance to making it universal remains strong. One reason Obamacare is such an unwieldy kludge of a health care program is that establishing a simple European- or Canadian-style system here is still politically far out of reach.
How come American views and policies changed so much with respect to the hot issues of sex and race, but not health care? CONT.
Claude Fischer, UC Berkeley