# What are the conservative arguments against single payer health care? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 18, 2015, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974 "2015-02-18T03:59:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974/21 "2015-02-18T14:30:41Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > There is a much better way than single payer. Legalize catastrophic health insurance, make medical prices transparent, and provide tax free health savings accounts for citizens. This way health care decisions are left to patients and competition works to keep prices low for everyone. Singapore has this system and it is the most efficient system in the world. Why should we copy the awful British and Canadian systems when we have proof that a better system works? Precisely. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974/22 "2015-02-18T14:47:28Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > You do realize that “single-payer health care” is not defined as the government providing health care services, right? It’s defined as the government paying the bills. > > In most systems, the British NHS being a notable exception, basically the same independent fee-for-service health provider system exists as in the US. The Canadian medical system, as a case in point, would be virtually indistinguishable to a typical American from the one he is used to at home. Except when it comes time to get the bill, no bill ever comes. Does that prospect scare you? 😛 A little bit. Let’s imagine something like Medicaid, except it covers everyone in the USA. Then we get as much health care as the system is willing to pay for. Medicaid doesn’t pay for a whole lot. Its reimbursement rates are so low that many people “covered” by Medicaid struggle to find a doctor or specialist who will take them. ---
**Author:** ![BOOM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c4cdca/32.png) [@BOOM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BOOM)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974/23 "2015-02-18T14:50:11Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Singapore has this system and it is the most efficient system in the world. Why should we copy the awful British and Canadian systems when we have proof that a better system works? You’re not copying anything. You’ve got a part-way fudge. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974/24 "2015-02-18T14:54:22Z")
Single payer does not just change who pays the bill. It reduces costs in several ways. It eliminates, or at least reduces, the use of ERs for things that can be handled less expensively in doctors’ offices. It eliminates the insurance middlemen, who serve no purpose other than to skim profits off of the healthcare money flow. This isn’t just a matter of replacing insurance bureaucrats with government bureaucrats. Insurance companies take profits that a government system wouldn’t have to. Insurance companies create redundant bureaucracies, both within themselves, and in the hospitals and doctors’ offices that need extra staff just to handle the insurance paperwork. Regarding health savings accounts. They’re great for people who have the spare income to put into such accounts. What happens to those who don’t? They end up in the ER either for minor issues or for major issues that would have been minor if they’d been able to see a doctor when the problem first arose. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974/25 "2015-02-18T15:04:02Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > There is a much better way than single payer. Legalize catastrophic health insurance, make medical prices transparent, and provide tax free health savings accounts for citizens. This way health care decisions are left to patients and competition works to keep prices low for everyone. Singapore has this system and it is the most efficient system in the world. Why should we copy the awful British and Canadian systems when we have proof that a better system works? Swing and a miss. Suppose you put money into an HSA for 20, even 40 years. Do you think there’d be enough in your pot for long term care, should you need it? Or if you developed a chronic condition such as diabetes, the cost of managing that would take a serious dent out of your HSA. Suppose your catastrophic health insurance decides that you don’t really need that heart transplant? You’re still at somebody’s mercy, and if I had to pick between a government bureaucrat and an insurance flunkie whose job security is based on how many people he denies claims for, I’ll go with the bureaucrat. “health care decisions are left to patients”- when wasn’t it left to patients? " competition works to keep prices low for everyone" No it wouldn’t. There is a shortage of doctors in the US. No matter how you pay for it or who pays for it, it’s a seller’s market. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974/26 "2015-02-18T15:07:32Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Single payer is not magic, it just changes who pays the bill. If the US changed to single payer over the weekend, on Monday the doctors and nurses would still want to be paid, the drugs would still cost the same amount, and patients would still want the same quality of care. The only possible savings would be that the bureaucrats administering the system would be in the government instead of the insurance companies. This savings, if it ever occurred, would be minuscule. Are we supposed to accept this on faith? The UK spends less on health care in total - including private supplemental coverage - than the US spends on health care _administration_. Your health care dollars do not, by and large, go to pay for your health care. They go to pay a byzantine network of administrators whose primary job is to figure out ways to avoid paying for your health care. > [@](#): > > There is a much better way than single payer. Legalize catastrophic health insurance, make medical prices transparent, and provide tax free health savings accounts for citizens. This way health care decisions are left to patients and competition works to keep prices low for everyone. Singapore has this system and it is the most efficient system in the world. Why should we copy the awful British and Canadian systems when we have proof that a better system works? We already have [catastrophic coverage and tax free health savings accounts](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_savings_account). Medical pricing transparency would be nice, but it’s not much help to those who require emergency care or who are already in a hospital and have no choice of provider (who represent the bulk of all healthcare expenditures.) ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974/27 "2015-02-18T15:19:56Z")
> [@BOOM](#): > > Of course, one party’s “notoriously underfunded NHS” is anothers ‘extraordinary good value’. Fwiw, for me it is certainly the former. I believe it can be both at the same time. The NHS certainly receives leaner funding than the health care systems of most European countries. At the same time, it squeezes an impressive amount of results out of those pounds. > [@wolfpup](#): > > And a final note on this is that the elderly can struggle in the US, too; it’s not just the NHS. I wish I could find a paper I read once with stats on how the elderly in Canada don’t just live longer but have a higher quality of life than their average US counterparts (the above, I suppose, could be considered an anecdotal example). There are units used to measure this. DALYs, disability-adjusted life years. It measures healthy years lost to disability or ill health. Or HALE, healthy life expectancy, which adjusts for time lived in poor health. You can use these measures for the comparisons you want. > [@puddleglum](#): > > Single payer is not magic, it just changes who pays the bill. If the US changed to single payer over the weekend, on Monday the doctors and nurses would still want to be paid, the drugs would still cost the same amount, and patients would still want the same quality of care. The only possible savings would be that the bureaucrats administering the system would be in the government instead of the insurance companies. This savings, if it ever occurred, would be minuscule. The estimated contributions of higher physicians wages to US excess costs is 5 %. Higher drug costs is 6 %. The big drivers of extra costs are medical and administrative waste. There are 600 000 people working in medical insurance in the US. Most at very good wages. The amount of financial work performed in the US healthcare system, like billing, liasing with insurance, credit-checking, is also immense. Anecdotally, I’ve heard of US hospitals that have more employees dealing with bills than they have beds. What is more, there are large amounts of duplication of work going on due to the many different systems used. That is the administrative waste. The medical waste is over-provision or under-utilization of services due to the nature of the system. (Fragmented and generating profit through provision) > [@puddleglum](#): > > The way other countries have ended up with cheaper systems was to slow the growth rate in the 1980s and early nineties. This is not an option for the US. As has already been pointed out the US government spends as much to cover half its population as Canada does to cover all of its population. The US spends more to cover just over a quarter of its population than Canada does to cover all its population. > [@puddleglum](#): > > In order to believe that single payer will reduce the cost of healthcare to something like Canada’s cost, you have to believe that the US can add 150 million people to the Government’s health care system for free. > By changing the funding mechanism to taxation you add in dead weight loss to issue. Any efficiencies generated by centralization would have to be greater than the dead weight loss caused by the increase in taxation. Since the US has one of the most progressive income tax burdens in the world, dead weight loss in the US would be larger than in most other countries. Taxes are already being paid to fund Medicare, Medicaid, VA, childrens, IHA etc. Note that due to the way the US system is set up, these groups generally consist of by far the most expensive patients. The ones being covered by private insurance are the ones young and healthy enough to work. In the US taxes already pay for the most expensive patients. > [@puddleglum](#): > > We have experience with government healthcare in the US and it is mostly not good. Medicare is inexorably taking up more and more of the federal budget with no end in sight. The VA is a national scandal, and people who are on [Medicaid](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7979836) are more likely to die than those with no insurance at all. I can’t open that document, but I believe the eligibility of Medicaid means that “people on medicaid” consists of a vastly more unhealthy group than “people without insurance” Was this corrected for? In any case, the US expereince does not seem to be set up in such a way as to avoid most of the essential US flaws -lots of systems overlapping each other, lots of gatekeeping. > [@puddleglum](#): > > Doubling the number of people who depend on government for health care while promising cost savings does not seem to be a good way to improve the system. > There is a much better way than single payer. Legalize catastrophic health insurance, make medical prices transparent, and provide tax free health savings accounts for citizens. This way health care decisions are left to patients and competition works to keep prices low for everyone. Singapore has this system and it is the most efficient system in the world. Why should we copy the awful British and Canadian systems when we have proof that a better system works? Singapore’s system is also single payer, it is a variety on the NI model. Compulsory savings funded by payroll deductions. With withdrawal limits. From a European viewpoint, it restricts your freedom a lot. It should also be noted that the UK and Canadian systems do outperform the US, so they cannot be that awful. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974/28 "2015-02-18T15:30:26Z")
> [@](#): > > What are the conservative arguments against single payer health care? Well, I found [this](http://fairlyconservative.com/2010/11/18/arguments-against-a-single-payer-health-care-system/) online and skimming over it I’d say it’s fairly representative of the conservative issues with single payer health care: > [@](#): > > 1. I would fear that in a government run health system, the quality of medicine would decrease. Many of the best and brightest become doctors in part because of the large earning potential. In a single payer system, the government has a large amount of negotiating/purchasing power. This is another way of saying that when there is only 1 payer, doctors, hospitals, etc. have nowhere else to go and have to take whatever the government will pay. So as lawyers and others make more and more, doctors will only be able to be paid whatever the government can spare (and given our current financial mess, odds are that won’t be very much). So a single payer system will lead to both shortages and inferior quality of physicians in the long run. > > 2. Quality of care will suffer in the long run for another reason…. if the government is the only payer, there is substantially less potential payoff for health care innovations. I am not a huge fan of drug companies, but I do acknowledge that for all the bad, the pharmaceutical industry has done a tremendous amount of good in the sheer number of lives saved and lives improved… our present health care system is very effective at stimulating the vast majority of medical innovations across the globe. Don’t we want the drug companies know that the research required for, say, a blockbuster cancer drug will be handsomely rewarded? > > 3. Quite simply, insurance companies are much better than the government at keeping the promises they make. I realize that insurers are not very popular these days, but this is not a very controversial statement. If the former starts to run short of money on hand to pay claims, their reputation is at stake. But the Federal Government IS running short…. we already have close to 60 TRILLION DOLLARS in UNFUNDED Medicare/Medicaid liabilities. You can say that government payers have better administrative expense ratios. That’s wonderful, but the fact is they don’t have the money to pay for the future claims they have promised. Consider the unprecedented magnitude of this shortfall (which is an even bigger problem than our national debt, yet receives surprisingly little attention), it seems entirely reasonable to conclude that government run health care in the US is the single most poorly managed endeavor in the history of the mankind (if you know of another program, even adjusting for inflation, that has ever had such a gigantic financial shortfall, please let me know what it might be). Therefore on what basis is it rational for us to hand the entire health care system over to the same people who have already run the parts they currently control into fiscal ruin? > > One other consideration… this I am by no means an expert in, but from what I have heard, we are pretty close to some amazing medical breakthroughs that could actually help to decrease the cost of health care. People always talk about technology as a driver of increased health care costs and that is very true…. but in most cases, once the technology gets good, it can go the other way (just like the first computers were very expensive and now anyone can get a pretty good laptop for $500). We are close to robotic arms that can perform surgeries…. imagine that rather than having surgeons who perform 2 surgeries per day, we had devices that could perform 40 per day at a fraction of the cost. That is the sort of thing that can bend the cost curve downward…. but the more we regulate the health care industry, the more we stifle the development of the sorts of medical breakthroughs that may be the only thing that really can slow down or reverse the accelerating health care cost trends. > [@](#): > > Please, no straw men. 😛 Good luck with that. > [@](#): > > Conservatives, do you object to single payer health care, and if so why? I am running out of reasons to oppose it. Contrary to the popular believe, I’m not a conservative, so grain of salt wrt my answer here. Do I object to a single payer health care system? No, not really. My problem is that, to me, the plans and goals as seem ill defined, as do the budgets and costs. Show me a road map to get us from what we have had in use for decades to the new system, show me exactly what the actual fixed end goals are as well as the intermediate milestones, and what the real, actual non-fantasy costs are going to be not just overall but on the various tax payer brackets. Don’t tell me trite bullshit about how this works in Europe or elsewhere, as to me that’s meaningless…show me how it would and can work HERE, and how we get there from where we are at, and what it’s really going to cost. Show me the projects of medical resources verse requirements if we go to a single payer system, and how they are projected to change during and after the switchover has happened. IOW, show me the project plan for this, the costs, the stake holders and the details. I think we COULD do this, but I think that a lot of the detail tends to get glossed over, that the goals are ill defined and that there really is no over arching plan…or if there are those things they are being hidden or de-emphasized because those making them know there would be distasteful aspects that people wouldn’t go for. I also think that a lot of folks handwave away just how difficult such a change would be to an entrenched system like we have in the US. Getting from the system that people in this country are generally used too to a system they aren’t familiar with at all, for the most part (even folks who THINK they know what other countries are doing and admire their results) is going to be hard, and convincing especially conservative types to buy off on a radical change (something they would be opposed to regardless because it IS a radical change) is going to take quite a bit of effort. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974/29 "2015-02-18T15:38:09Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > In order to believe that single payer will reduce the cost of healthcare to something like Canada’s cost, you have to believe that the US can add 150 million people to the Government’s health care system for free. No, in order to believe that single payer will reduce the cost of health care to something like Canada’s cost per capita, you just have to believe that the US can implement the same funding model and the same cost control structure. > [@puddleglum](#): > > There is a much better way than single payer. Legalize catastrophic health insurance, make medical prices transparent, and provide tax free health savings accounts for citizens. This way health care decisions are left to patients and competition works to keep prices low for everyone. “Catastrophic health insurance” and health savings accounts is just one small step removed from not having health insurance at all, the very problem that we’re trying to get away from, which still afflicts some 40+ million uninsured and much larger numbers whose insurance sucks. And I think the idea of the awesome invisible hand of the free market keeping prices low is an idea whose credibility has worn thin to the point of fairy dust. There’s lots of competition right now – between providers, between insurance companies. And what has that got you? By far the highest costs in the world, and rising faster than almost anywhere else. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974/30 "2015-02-18T16:10:21Z")
> [@sweeteviljesus](#): > > Please, no straw men. > > Conservatives, do you object to single payer health care, and if so why? I am running out of reasons to oppose it. > > Thanks, > Rob I think there are really 3 main reasons: 1. It’s essentially wealth redistribution, like **DrCube** points out, and the basic concept is that you should be able to spend YOUR own money on YOUR own health. 2. Distrust of government and a belief that anything the government does is de-facto more shoddy and less efficient than the private sector can. 3. There’s a big belief that it’ll reduce choice and prevent people from making their own decisions about their own health care. This isn’t so important among the younger set, but the old-timers take this very seriously. 4. A fear that their treatment will be driven by financial bottom-lines and/or political agendas, and not by sound medicine, and that they won’t get much say in it as a result. This is similar to, but not quite the same as #3. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974/31 "2015-02-18T16:20:53Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > No, in order to believe that single payer will reduce the cost of health care to something like Canada’s cost per capita, you just have to believe that the US can implement the same funding model and the same cost control structure. > > “Catastrophic health insurance” and health savings accounts is just one small step removed from not having health insurance at all, the very problem that we’re trying to get away from, which still afflicts some 40+ million uninsured and much larger numbers whose insurance sucks. And I think the idea of the awesome invisible hand of the free market keeping prices low is an idea whose credibility has worn thin to the point of fairy dust. There’s lots of competition right now – between providers, between insurance companies. And what has that got you? By far the highest costs in the world, and rising faster than almost anywhere else. “you just have to believe that the US can implement the same funding model and the same cost control structure.” Exactly, if the US could implement the same cost control structure as Canada, why has it not done so? The US government pays the same percentage of GDP on healthcare as the Canadian government, yet covers only half the medical expenses of its citizens. How is the governments supposed to suddenly get great at controlling the cost when it has twice the people depending on it? Most of the people moving from the private system would be middle class and above people used to getting whatever medical care they want and would raise cain if their care is diminished in quality. The problem we are trying to get away from is the high cost of medical insurance. Just as single payer will not automatically decrease medical expenses neither does insurance. Every mandate that increases what insurance covers also increases the cost of that insurance. More expensive insurance means fewer people buy insurance. If the problem is people being uninsured than coverage mandates are a cause of the problem and not a solution. There is plenty of competition in the medical field but it is not in the realm of price. I choose the gas I buy based on price and so competition keeps the price of gas low. I have no idea how much my doctor visits cost my insurance and choose my doctor on convenience and quality. This is why the US has four times the MRI machines as Canada per capita. Procedures such as LASIC and tooth whitening are not covered by insurance and compete on price which is why the price of LASIK has fallen by over 70% since it was introduced and why I get postcards in the mail weekly advertising cheap teeth whitening treatments. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974/32 "2015-02-18T16:33:08Z")
LASIK and tooth whitening are covered by many vision and dental plans. In any event, you are glossing over the reason they are not covered by all of them: they’re wholly elective procedures which are clearly distinguishable from most forms of medical care. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974/33 "2015-02-18T16:34:11Z")
In terms of health-care outcomes, single-payer is relatively mediocre due to it often being lacking in funding. Of course it would be an improvement over what we have now but that’s not difficult. This is why I advocate strongly for the implementation of the German model. Single-payer is dead on arrival in the United States while the Bismarck model is the basis for ACA and further expansion. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974/34 "2015-02-18T16:49:11Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > A few months ago, we learned about a scandal in the Veterans Affairs health care system. Many veterans had died while waiting for medical services. Kinda like the scandal in pre-2014 America, where many people died while waiting for medical services - because they couldn’t afford insurance. Inaction can and does kill too. ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974/35 "2015-02-18T16:50:25Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Exactly, if the US could implement the same cost control structure as Canada, why has it not done so? Because there are a lot of entrenched interests that profit of the current system. And Single Payer is more effective because it is universal. No insurance to decide who is covered, what is covered, discuss with the provider what will actually be paid. Its all covered. No bureaucracy dealing with bills and coverage in the hospital, everyone is covered, its paid for, move on. No bureaucrats getting in the way of treatment. Funding is sluiced to doctors to allocate based on medical needs, not ability to pay, or profit from the procedure. You can’t add single payer to the current system. It wouldn’t be single payer, just another level of duplicate work. You’d have to replace the current setup of government healthcare to free up the funds. And the outcry…Obamacare would be a wet firecracker in comparison. One thing Europeans just don’t get in these debates: Americans are _scared of not having healthcare_. It is a **realistic fear** for an American. It **actually happens**. To Europeans , that fear is like being afraid of Goblins. Its not something you worry about in the modern age. In these discussions, the people who fear not getting healthcare are always American. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974/36 "2015-02-18T16:57:31Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I think there are really 3 main reasons: > > 1. It’s essentially wealth redistribution, like **DrCube** points out, and the basic concept is that you should be able to spend YOUR own money on YOUR own health. > > 2. Distrust of government and a belief that anything the government does is de-facto more shoddy and less efficient than the private sector can. > > 3. There’s a big belief that it’ll reduce choice and prevent people from making their own decisions about their own health care. This isn’t so important among the younger set, but the old-timers take this very seriously. > > 4. A fear that their treatment will be driven by financial bottom-lines and/or political agendas, and not by sound medicine, and that they won’t get much say in it as a result. This is similar to, but not quite the same as #3. 1- Unless you’re Bill Gates, you don’t have enough money for every potential health issue that you could have. If you’re middle class and get in a serious car accident, you’d run through anything you could have saved in an HSA in days if not hours if not minutes. All of us are potential recipients of the common resources. 2- We can’t base policy on the false beliefs of the ignorant. 3- Again, we can’t base policy on someone’s misunderstanding. The current system limits your choice to what your insurer is willing to cover. 4- Again, we have it now. Every insurer has scores of people whose sole job is to look for ways to deny coverage, plus a bullpen of high priced lawyers who can and will kick your ass in court if you decide to sue. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974/37 "2015-02-18T17:43:59Z")
This country’s fear of single payer is largely driven by industry propaganda. The attitudes are being shaped by special interests rather than facts. Those special interests create those fears and then cite those fears as reasons not to implement single payer. Like so much else in this country, policy is driven by wealthy special interests rather than by what’s best for the people. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974/38 "2015-02-18T17:45:22Z")
[QUOTE=BobLibDem] 2- We can’t base policy on the false beliefs of the ignorant. [/QUOTE] Really? :dubious: ‘We’ seem to do this literally all the time, so I think your use of ‘can’t’ is based on your own ignorance and false believe (or, that you really didn’t think this through before answering…for example, have you seen any nuclear reactors being building the US lately? Have you notice the recent measles outbreak?) ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974/39 "2015-02-18T17:47:32Z")
I’m sure you know that term is often used as an exhortation, meaning “shouldn’t”. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974/40 "2015-02-18T17:56:10Z")
That’s the dilemma with representative government. Policies are ultimately determined by the beliefs and fears of the populace and those beliefs and fears can be manipulated by someone who has the resources to do so. The answer is to educate the populace regarding the facts, but that’s difficult when rhetoric is easy but facts take time to explain. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-conservative-arguments-against-single-payer-health-care/712974.md?page=3)