Reply #31: Au contraire, I do expect my government to make it happen. [View All]

And I am not alone in harboring this sentiment. According to a recent Rasmussen Reports survey, Forty-four percent (44%) of American adults say that health care services should be made available for free to all Americans. It found that 39% disagree and 17% are not sure.

Regardless, you can not dismiss an argument in favor of single-payer UHC by claiming it is unlikely that it will ever come about. Single-payer poses a threat to the stakeholders in the present system, and therefore is opposed by interests vested in the status quo. But our discussion should focus on which of the policy alternatives best serves the public interest.

This is not all about "...improving the healthcare crisis by governing the existing health care industry." That is part, but not all, of the debate. I'm going to guess that by this you mean the existing health care insurance industry. Am I correct? This is an important distinction because I am certainly not endorsing any change in the way doctors and hospitals operate today, except for a significant reduction in their overhead costs that are currently brought about by interaction with private healthcare insurance providers.

Therefore it is misleading to claim that there's no gurantee "government healthcare" would be more efficient than "private healthcare". With single-payer, just as with Medicare Parts A & B today, healthcare would be very much in the private sector. The government would just pay the bills.

And there is a wealth of evidence that indicates single-payer UHC would be much more efficient. Please consider the following graphic that shows Canada is spending half as much per capita as we are. Everybody there is covered. Their infant mortality rate is lower and their life expectancy is higher.



Since you seem unconvinced by the resource I previously supplied, here is a link to a website that provides results from a wealth of studies which all confirm huge saviings would be realized by changing to a single payer system.