Many of the industry actors make bank based on spread, which incentivizes lack of downward pressure on prices in order to get allocated bigger chunks of money to manage as float. This increases earning in the event your risk pool is on the lighter side, and ensures that all actors material to price point fixation converge on price increases.
Medicare/Medicaid don't factor into the price point equation, because they aren't allowed to negotiate as a private market actor, and are considered by most who got into the U.S. medical industrial complex as a price of doing business to cash in on the fundamentally dysfunctional market.
Until you can get a straight answer out of insurers/hospitals/medical practices how much something will cost ahead of time,you won't get sane downward price pressure.
There's also the F'd Medical Education Complex issue and cartel as well, but that's another issue.
Full disclosure: Working somewhere that's trying to remedy at least a part of this dysfunction.
As such, Obama proposed the ACA as some kind of middle road[3], with the goal of having something that both sides would be in favor of, and to hold the moderates that were against single payer[4]. After the better part of a year of negotiation and multiple efforts to reach out to the opposition, the ACA was passed without any Republican votes, who then spent the following eight years running for office on the idea of repealing it (with at least 50 attempts in a four year span).
Unfortunately, the Republicans don't have any plan for healthcare themselves, resulting in a failed repeal attempt three years ago even after taking control of the house, senate and presidency.
It should be fairly obvious at this point that logical arguments for or against policies are irrelevant, even more so than they were ten years ago - and yes, a great many people would vote against it. They spent the last decade doing just that.
[0] https://www.politico.com/story/2009/08/palin-doubles-down-on...
[1] https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2009/07/28/s...
[2] https://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/passing-the-bat...
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/us/politics/10obama.text....
[4] https://www.newsday.com/business/single-payer-health-care-pl...
take me for example. I have no idea how much my employer contributes to my premiums. the only way I can think of to estimate the cost is to look up typical pricing for comparable ACA plans. if we switched to universal healthcare, I have no way of knowing what fraction of those premiums would be tacked back onto my salary versus simply pocketed by my employer. all I know is that things are currently okay for me, and as long as I do the in/out-of-network dance correctly, my exposure is limited to my out-of-pocket max. outside of ideological/moral concerns, there's really no incentive for me to rock the boat.
Code DD in box 12 of your W2 shows the cost of the health benefits from your employer.
https://www.irs.gov/affordable-care-act/form-w-2-reporting-o...
> The Affordable Care Act requires employers to report the cost of coverage under an employer-sponsored group health plan. Reporting the cost of health care coverage on the Form W-2 does not mean that the coverage is taxable. The value of the employer’s excludable contribution to health coverage continues to be excludable from an employee's income, and it is not taxable. This reporting is for informational purposes only and will provide employees useful and comparable consumer information on the cost of their health care coverage.
> Employers required to file fewer than 250 Forms W-2 for the preceding calendar year (determined without application of any entity aggregation rules for related employers)
I'm guessing it's that; pretty sure we have less than 250 employees in the US.
If you made university free for everyone the Reserves would take a hit on enlistment, same with active duty but to a lesser extent. I'm a vet and those things were huge in making my choice to join, lots of family and friends, fellow service members have echoed the same.
The military is largely downsizing though in warm body count so it might not matter much anymore.
Edit for clarity - This wasn't a rally, but a small event of 'suits' in the audience. Perhaps a debate?
I haven’t checked what Biden’s plan is currently, but I assume it will be something that strengthens Obamacare. But ... you never know, Harris would be VP...
The average wait time at a Starbucks in my town is about 18 minutes because of the number of people who are in line. Starbucks is seen as a great independent business whose lines are just a byproduct how successful they are and representative of capitalism.
The average wait time at the USPS is about 10 minutes in the same town, which largely includes people having to fill out forms for packages. This is seen as an inadequate and inefficient endeavor by a government that spends way too much money.
Because the wait time for the USPS negatively impacts their livelihood, they would prefer to go bankrupt or watch people kill themselves via untreated illnesses (because they can't afford to get them treated) than submit to a single-payer system, even if they had the option to supplement the public plan with private insurance.
Until they turn 65. Then suddenly they're for it, as long as the younger people still suffer.
Americans tend to judge capitalism by its successes and socialism by its failures, even though any modern functioning society is going to have a mix of both.
For example: My wife's father's family.
The relatives that didn't flee Europe were murdered in the early 1940s by a German government conspiracy.
For any other change, there would generally be a preference from people to phase the changes, why not healthcare too?
Regarding voters, an aside I find pretty rich is that among those 65 years and older, i.e., voters who currently enjoy Medicare coverage, and overwhelmingly regard the program positively, support for M4A is only 46%.
It is still in the power of the people to replace him as majority leader of the Senate, if they want to unblock that logjam.
The problem in the US is that a large chunk of the population have been trained to be anti-tax regardless of goal.
They'll support Universal Medicine hypothetically but as soon as you talk about the required payroll tax they'll oppose it, even if it is lower than they're paying now in premiums. Then the conversation will immediately turn into a "government cannot be trusted"/"stealing my money" etc.
People will love it once it is online, just like the ACA/Medicare/Social Security, but getting it online is politically radioactive and will sink both the politician and party until people realize they love it.
(What is the political equivalent of dopamine signalling?)
During the debate surrounding ACA, single-payer healthcare was not deliberated in congress. Nobody really got the chance to vote for or against it, or express much in the way of pleasure or displeasure with representatives in support or opposition.
And these things are not on the table. They are not, nor have they ever been, really considered -- at least not for the last 50 years. The recent candidate who ran on this platform, Bernie Sanders, was widely loved by the public and absolutely slated by the media.
The wealthiest in America are fine but the poor are more miserable than some third-world countries. The country is falling apart and there's really no opposing force, trying to stop it.
I have never even seen it on a ballot.