Idea of “earning” health care may be rooted in America’s slaveholding past
http://californiaonecare.org/idea-of-earning-health-care-may-be-rooted-in-americas-slaveholding-past/As the essay above mentioned, inequality was built into the DNA of the U.S. Constitution, and slavery built American capitalism (a book outlining the latter point in detail, but not mentioned in Lawrence’s essay, is Edward Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism). Lawrence notes that the cultural attitude in America is that everyone living here who isn’t wealthy is only useful for doing
wage work…for the benefit of the capitalist system.
I would add that those who, for various reasons, don’t work, can’t work or can’t find work are seen as “less than,” “surplus” or “useless” (with the exception of retirees). American society makes it extremely difficult for such people to survive, let alone thrive, and they are resented by others for taking public assistance, the reason being that they “haven’t earned it.” Never mind that every American uses at least one government program of some kind (the mortgage interest deduction is a popular middle class government program).
Having to “earn” health care – rather than it being a right conferred to people by virtue of being born and/or living in America – is a principle embedded in racist culture. I believe it is the principle by which the U.S. stubbornly clings to the inefficient and unfair system of employer-provided private health coverage. One must “work” to have access to high quality health coverage, preferably at a good-paying, middle class job. If you are unfortunate enough to only land low-wage work, because of lack of education or a bad economy, and your employer doesn’t provide health coverage, you were left with nothing at all before the Affordable Care Act passed, or with lower-tier Medicaid after the law passed. For many poor people living in states where Republican-controlled legislatures have refused to expand Medicaid, the situation is the same as before health reform.
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that Repubs, and Conservatives in general don't respect work. Not really. They like to claim the white collar jobs in finance and stock market offices are true "work" when in fact they are more gambling than working. They certainly have no respect for people who work for someone else. In their minds, anybody who really counts should be running their own business, or making their living day trading stocks or something, anything that is "entrepreneurial" in their minds.
Of course, most wealthy people in America, like anywhere else in the world earned their wealth the old fashioned way, they inherited it. At worst, most of them started out on second or third base, to call up an old canard. And to finish the line, they think they hit a homer, that is they did all the work. Pres Obama's line about "they didn't do that" was understood by anybody who knows how the hard working people of the world get along. Only someone of privilege stoking their ego thinks they got where they are completely on their own efforts, with no assistance from any outside source. At best they'll thank God, instead of the public institutions which made their accumulation of wealth possible.
Working class, to them, means lower class, and don't deserve anything extra, meaning anything more than someone in the owner/CEO class is willing to pay them.
Thanks for the link. 
This points to the problem already in progress roughly 250 years ago, when in reality it began roughly 6,000. 
