re: #292 ObserverArt

Scary healthcare stories go way back. I remember hearing about managed and socilaized healthcare back in the early 80s. It really got rolling with Hillary Care in the early 90s. I think the insurance companies and their politicians tried to portray all of it as standing in line outside run-down and dirty clinics with Doctors that were the worst ever treating you.

Possibly they were watching all the European countries and Canada go with it and they knew it wouldn’t be long before Americans wanted it too so start the scare tactics and build on them before the debates.

Well before that: I recall (very) avant la lettre satires dating back to the ’70s - usually National Lampoon stuff, IIRC - that would paint “socialized medicine” in the absolute-worst terms: i.e. Bulgaria 1955 - and contrast their straw hellholes with the wonderful state of healthcare in the US: “modern”, advanced, much more efficient (i.e. way fewer patients croaked though sepsis) - and above all: relatively cheap.
Unfortunately, those stereotypes still linger (even if the “cheap” part tends to get glossed over)…