Why do people in the US do not want a single-payer health plan?

Answer 1

The primary opposition to the idea of a single-payer system is that the single payer is the government. Without waxing overly ideological, whenever the government becomes involved in a system, the system becomes, by nature, more coercive and less voluntary. To that extent, the element of choice disappears.

Furthermore, health care providers essentially become employees of the government in the sense that the nature and extent of the care that they can provide is dictated by the state. While it can perhaps be argued that something similar occurs in the existing managed care environment of private health care financing, the provider and the recipient of services are free to leave the plan for another. That freedom necessarily disappears in any government sponsored program.

Additionally, when politics, upon which any government program is founded, is substituted for the voluntary marketplace, force and corruption often is substituted for the free exchange of goods and services. People (government operatives who strive for promotion and reelection) are readily bought, and further, promises come cheaply. All one has to do is look to the current administration that campaigned on a promise of "hope" and is delivering a nightmare.

The other thing to consider is whether it is fundamentally correct and just to take from the productive in order to finance programs (that might be characterized as giveaways or welfare) for the non-or-less productive. The taxes that would finance a single-payer system are, by their nature, confiscatory (like all taxes). Admittedly, there are some services that are legitimate for the government to provide (such as the military) and for which to tax the citizens. However, health care does not come within that category. This is in part because that there tends to be gross over-utilization of health care services when someone else is paying for them (witness, Medicare). It is fundamentally not right, nor is there a right, to every test, every drug, every surgery, or every other medical procedure when one is unable to privately pay for it. Charity is a viable option for many, but for those who cannot afford "the best" or who cannot tap into charity, I'm sorry to say, but "so be it".

I have not worked a lifetime, nor have you, to pay for the health care of strangers. I am likewise not willing to enslave skilled health care providers, for if we do, their ranks will dwindle. Why would someone strive for greatness in their field for no reward; to be but a numbered provider in the ranks of government? Further, we will become nothing but a third-world civilization or like one of many European countries who have blindly embraced what they perceive as egalitarianism, only to swiftly bankrupt their treasuries and moral compass.