General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Why are Americans so resistant to Universal Healthcare? [View all]Freddie
(9,266 posts)I'm presuming you mean single payer and not "achieving universal healthcare" by a Swiss-style system like the ACA is emulating.
Everyone knows how we ended up with the employer-provided health instance norm back in the 40's. For most people, back then, not having insurance was not the worst thing in the world. A doctor visit was $20, a standard stay in the hospital (childbirth, appendectomy) might have been $50. Penicillin and aspirin were cheap. There were no CT scans, MRIs, etc. Got cancer, heart disease, complications in childbirth? You died.
So we limped along for years until advances in medicine made it impossible for all but the very rich to "self-pay". And most able-bodied adults and their families got good, comprehensive insurance mostly paid by their employers. These people - many of whom can't comprehend that not everyone has this privilege- are not willing to give this up for something unsure and possibly not as good as what they have now.
And there's the bogeyman of "higher taxes!" Not considering that the higher taxes would be offset by no insurance premiums, no insurance coming out of your paycheck and your employer paying in a flat % of wages rather than your insurance. The majority of employers would come out ahead.
So the only way to sell this would be to make sure that the health care we get under single payer would be as good as most employer plans.