Eric Zuesse

Yet another poll confirms that America’s dictatorial clique take advantage of the ignorance and gullibility of the average person so that the clique’s politicians can win votes no matter how much these politicians block passage and enforcement of any proposed laws that the dictators don’t want to pass or to be enforced.

In this latest case, the owners of the insurance companies refuse to allow single-payer (i.e., tax-financed, as opposed to for-profit) health insurance, though three-quarters of the American people, in the latest poll, want it, and though past polls (which likewise were hidden from the public) also overwhelmingly indicate that the public want it.

For decades now, the owners have blocked it, though the public have overwhelmingly wanted it.

This is an excellent example of the consistent finding in the empirical political-science literature, that the U.S. is a dictatorship by the richest against the public, and not actually a democracy at all.

This particular poll-finding was a poll taken by Ipsos for the Reuters ’news’-agency and was made public by Reuters on August 23rd; and what Ipsos found, regarding this matter, was effectively kept secret by the sponsoring ’news’-organization (Reuters), by their burying it within a bad article that Reuters issued under an almost unrelated headline, “Inside the progressive movement roiling the Democratic Party”, in which report, this finding didn’t even pertain to “the progressive movement roiling the Democratic Party” (the article’s alleged topic) but instead, pertained to the entire U.S. electorate, and was merely found to be more pronounced among Democrats than it was among Republicans — as it long has been, and so that’s not even news at all.

So, this important finding was buried by Reuters, under an inappropriate heading, and it was buried there, in that lengthy and unrelated story, despite the finding itself being probably of broader general interest to the American people than was that drab headline, about the Democratic Party’s particular segment of the U.S. electorate.

This important poll-finding was buried 70% down in that lengthy trashy Reuters article, in which it was being introduced. The finding was that Americans of all parties, and of no party, who are asked “Would you support or oppose the following?” regarding “a policy of Medicare for all?” answer overwhelmingly yes.

The only news-site which published the finding itself, on the same day, August 23rd, was this — hardly a mainstream (i.e., billionaire-backed) news-site:

Reuters/Ipsos poll: 70 percent support Medicare for All Posted by Don McCanne MD on Thursday, Aug 23, 2018 This entry is from Dr. McCanne’s Quote of the Day, a daily health policy update on the single-payer health care reform movement. The QotD is archived on PNHP’s website. Reuters/Ipsos, June and July 2018 – Would you support or oppose the following? A policy of Medicare for All? (When it comes to the U.S. healthcare system) Democrat

84.5% – Support

10.7% – Oppose

4.8% – Don’t know Republican

51.9% – Support

37.4% – Oppose

10.7% – Don’t know Total

70.1% – Support

20.6% – Oppose

9.3% – Don’t know In this new Reuters/Ipsos poll of 2,989 American adults, 70 percent support Medicare for all, and even a majority of Republicans – 52 percent – do so as well.

As of two days after that ‘news’ release from Reuters, August 25th, no mainstream ‘news’ medium had published this information. Two days later, on August 27th, still no mainstream ‘news’ medium had reported it. To the vast majority of Americans, it’s still a secret, no news at all. And now it’s too late even to be news, it’s only history — but still hidden history. The poll showed that 77% of Americans who had an opinion one way or the other about socialization of the health-insurance operation in the U.S. favored it; only 23% of those people didn’t want that change to be made. And all mainstream ‘news’ media in this country ignored that fact which had been buried in a Reuters ‘news’ story.

So: any Americans who (like the vast majority of people are) is so authoritarian as to be favorably influenced toward a belief when that belief is reported to be shared by a majority of the population, won’t likely know that single-payer health insurance (otherwise known as “socialized health insurance”) is favored by over 3/4ths of the American public (and was supported by around 2/3rds for decades before that), and yet has consistently been blocked by the politicians whom they’ve been offered on their electoral ballots for federal offices, in the general election (the final election).

It’s been blocked by the supposed ‘democratically selected representatives of the American people’. The American people are (in the general election) actually being offered only candidates for national offices whom the billionaires have offered to them. The only political options that are finally offered to the American public are ones whom some segment of America’s billionaires back. It’ll be either the conservative billionaires, or the liberal billionaires, who will be represented by any given federal office-holder, in the U.S.A.

This is a typical example of the consistent finding in the empirical political-science literature, that the U.S. is a dictatorship by the richest against the public, and not actually a democracy at all. And it also displays, quite strikingly, the corruption of America’s ‘news’ media (controlled by those billionaires), to fit that corrupt government — really, that they belong to the same few people, billionaires (plus the few most politically active of centi-millionaires), who control the U.S. Government itself.

So: any person who refers to America as a “democracy” should be asked what is meant by that term, because America is certainly not a democracy — it’s actually a dictatorship, by the rich.