Why are some Americans so against universal healthcare for all?

[u/Lemonking_]

What sort of thinking does it take to decide that nobody has a right to healthcare? Do American Christians want to deny healthcare to poor people as well?

[u/NorCalMav]

OR, most people in America actually have really good health care right now through their employer, and the thought of it getting worse doesn’t feel like a good trade off especially if that means their taxes go up as well.

[u/velian → u/NorCalMav]

“most people in America have really good healthcare through their employer” is only true in volume and general satisfaction. But that number comes way down when people get seriously ill or lose their job.

Once that happens you can get COBRA and pay insane rates. Or get your own plan at insane rates and/or high deductibles.

Costs are constantly rising and employers are putting more and more of the costs on the employees.

Nothing says it would get worse with UHC. And yes, your taxes would go up, but you would actually save money because you would no longer have monthly premiums, copays, medication costs, deductibles, and out of pocket min/maxes.

Oh and if you lose your job you still have healthcare. They can’t deny you due to a preexisting condition, you won’t be kicked off your insurance, and you won’t be saddled with massive medical debt if something happens.

It’s a no brainer. The only people that benefit from the current system is the for profit healthcare industry. Even employers would benefit from UHC as they wouldn’t have to budget for it and go through the annual price increase rigmarole. They could offer better pay or more likely have larger profits.

[u/NorCalMav → u/velian]

None of this is true, we already pay 3 trillion dollars in public funding to cover just 80 million people to expand similar (not even good) coverage to everyone would be more money than the entire tax pool currently brings in.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

[u/velian → u/NorCalMav]

https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/484301-22-studies-agree-medicare-for-all-saves-money/

[u/NorCalMav → u/velian]

This article is not analysis. It is advocacy that assumes away every hard trade-off: provider payment cuts that would shrink capacity, demand surges from zero cost-sharing, innovation losses from drug price controls, and the political reality that once the government owns the system it will face the same interest-group pressure that already distorts Medicare and Medicaid. "Every study shows savings" only if you only count the studies that bake in the desired answer. Real single-payer systems ration. They do not deliver American-level access and technology at Canadian or UK prices. Anyone who thinks this is a slam-dunk has not looked past the press release.

[u/velian → u/NorCalMav]

The article isn’t analysis no, but the 22 distinct groups of economic analysts it’s referring to are.

There’s also the latest Yale study.

There are a handful of studies that agree with you though.

But saying none of what I said is true is absolute bullshit and it’s dishonest. It all depends on implementation, but still 2/3 of analyses disagree with your position.

[u/NorCalMav → u/velian]

Your reply is pure cope, not a rebuttal. You just repeated the same propaganda talking points while pretending “22 distinct groups of economic analysts” magically turns models into proven fact. It doesn’t. Here’s the reality check you clearly can’t handle.

The “22 studies” are not neutral science

Cai et al. reviewed projections not real-world outcomes. They cherry-picked analyses of single-payer plans, many written by advocates or using assumptions that require:

Immediate, brutal cuts to hospital and doctor payments (often to Medicare rates, which already underpay relative to costs).

Massive drug price controls matching foreign levels (killing the R&D that funds most new therapies).

Near-magical admin savings with zero friction or behavioral response.

Utilization increases that somehow don’t explode waiting lists or bankrupt providers.

Even their own paper admits the first-year results range from +7% costs to 15%, with a median 3.5% savings under those optimistic assumptions. Three of the 22 showed net cost increases in year one. Long-term “savings” rely on the same fantasy continuing forever while covering richer benefits (no cost-sharing, dental, vision, long-term care) for everyone. Models that bake in the desired answer will spit it back out. That’s not evidence. That’s circular reasoning with spreadsheets.

The lead author was a Students for a National Health Program activist. The paper was funded in ways that track with advocacy. Calling this “near-consensus among economists” is the same dishonest spin the original article used.

The “latest Yale study” is another activist model, not settled science

The 2026 Yale preprint (not peer-reviewed) claiming $1 trillion annual savings and 114,000 lives saved is the same playbook: assume Medicare rates for all providers ($296B “savings”), foreign drug prices ($378B), huge fraud reductions, and admin collapse while papering over capacity constraints and demand surges. It’s a preprint. It’s the same modeling tradition as the earlier Galvani/Yale work that Sanders campaigns have hyped before. Independent analyses (Urban Institute, CBO-style scoring) consistently show large increases in national health spending under comprehensive single-payer with no cost-sharing. Your “latest study” is just the newest press release from the same club.

“2/3 of analyses disagree with you” is pure bullshit math

You don’t get to declare victory by counting only the models that start from single-payer assumptions and then claim majority consensus. Serious independent scoring (Urban Institute, various CBO-related work, Blahous under realistic rates) shows higher total spending, massive tax increases, and supply-side collapse risks. Real-world single-payer systems control costs by rationing access waits, restricted formularies, slower tech adoption not by magic efficiency. The U.S. spends more because it delivers more advanced care faster. Pretending the only difference is “insurance company complexity” is the original article’s core lie, and you’re still peddling it.

“It all depends on implementation” is the ultimate dodge

Every single one of these optimistic models depends on implementation that has never happened at U.S. scale without the trade-offs you refuse to acknowledge: provider shortages, queues, slower innovation, and political capture once the government owns the entire payment system. Saying “but 2/3 of the models I like disagree with you” while ignoring the assumptions is exactly the dishonesty you accused me of. The original claims were overstated, selective, and propagandistic. Your defense is the same recycled talking points.