Do people 'deserve' universal health care?

[gagged_Louise]

bellelapine, do you seriously think that people who are genuinely poor do not sometimes get treated just as shittily as your mother? To turn your qúestion around: why should people who have tried hard to find a way out of a mess they did not choose themselves - bad state schools, closed circles of getting a decent job, illness - have to pay for the occasional cheating and hustling by some anonymous folks they have never met, but who happen to be living in the same kind of places and have more spacious consciences?

Unfortunately you can't sell yourself today - or begin to reinvent yourself - by saying "look, I have tried so hard for years and I have actually kept my nose just above the water, though the career path that I wanted and trained for hasn't got started yet". That kind of 'neat threadbare powerty' just isn't appreciated today, not in a world of flash wealth and celebs waving gold chains, furs, credit cards and diamond rings.

I don't have any trouble understanding why ghetto kids feel the glam gangster is a more inspiring role model than a dogged factory worker (soon unemployed and without medical insurance for his crumbling joints) or their 40-year old mom who just barely gets to pay the rent and keep them clothed - and who looks a bit haggard and ten years older than she actually is. You get nowhere today by trying to show off a facade of neat propriety and zero ability to break your own niches. And to achieve some lucky breaks and show off your talent often takes money. For better or worse, that's why people today, unlike in the 1940s, are not likely to accept the idea that keeping poor and proper but honest is all they should do.