# What are the arguments against Medicare for all?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-against-medicare-for-all/816997>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [June 29, 2018, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-against-medicare-for-all/816997 "2018-06-29T15:13:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-against-medicare-for-all/816997/387 "2018-08-29T06:35:12Z")

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> [@survinga](#):
>
> … I don’t think you fully understand how over the cliff the right-wing in America has gone. This isn’t just Trump. It’s their entire policy and money apparatus. I don’t think they can be trusted to keep anything in place or to protect anything, even if a group of bipartisan senators cooked up an awesome’ish single-payer plan. Matter of fact, as I type this, I actually think the Republicans’ next move, should they win in the midterm elections, is to go after SS & medicare. They will use the debt as a reason, even though their last tax cut increased the debt/deficits.
> 
> The one thing I can say that worse about America than many places right now is our “conservative” political party. They’ve gone stark-raving mad, and we just shouldn’t try and put something together that they’ll tear to pieces one day. We try and vote them out, and then we put things together that they can’t attack all at once…

I am also pessimistic. The sheer cost of right-wing malice is staggering. Recall that Clinton and the Democrats solved the deficit problem in the 1990’s and the GOP deliberately threw that away at a cost of trillions. The misadventure in Iraq was a deliberate boondoggle, again with multi-trillion cost. GOP opposition to UHC costs at least half a million human lives per decade. Environmental regulations removed just in the last year will cost tens of thousands more lives. (I hope I don’t receive a warning for political jabs in GD — the above are facts, not opinions.)

The one optimistic straw I grasp at is the sheer horror, incompetence, and blatant corruption of the Trump Administration. Just as the drug-crazed rapist in **Clockwork Orange** was cured with aversion therapy, so maybe Americans will wake up in the aftermath of Trump and finally understand that Stupidism is not a sound political philosophy. (Alex the Droog does relapse in **Clockwork Orange** ; let this be a warning to America: Move quickly when sanity is restored.)

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