Why don't conservatives support the idea of a national health care system?

Question

Conservatives generally support business, which is good. Our current system of insurance rides squarely on the backs of employers. The system is broken and employers can't afford it.

If the government pays for health care, our taxes would go up. But we would not be paying health-care premiums. That's HUGE! Employers would not be paying health care premiums, also HUGE. The savings to employers could maybe be split between salaries and the company, both parties benefit.

People would then have more money to spend and improve the economy. Business would have more money to invest and sustain itself.

The devil is in the details: how do you get it all to work? But it seems like the IDEA would be good for all. So, without calling names, I'd like to know why this idea couldn't work.

Wow. How nice to see an issue discussed without liberal and conservative bashing! Lots of good points to consider. But I still think a national health care plan is needed and could be workable.

This isn't the same government that runs our schools. State governments run our schools and where I live (Wisconsin) the schools are excellent.

But I agree that the bureaucracy has grown with some of these programs to the point that they are paralyzed and ineffective.

Thanks for the answers.

Answer 1

Because conservatives (not phony current Republicans) believe in Private Property Rights. My money is my property, not the federal government's and not somebody else's. It should be my decision on how my money that I earned through my hard work is spent.
The only way to fund a "national health care system" is to take my money through force and give it to politicians and bureaucrats.
Private property rights are the very foundation of liberty.
We are a nation of individual liberty, not group liberty.

One reason health care costs so much is because Medicare has now reached over 120,000 pages of regulations. If you owned a business (even a non-profit) and the federal government threw 120,000 pages of regulations on your desk, what would you do? 120,000 pages of regulation would break anything.

The economy would not improve. The historic difference in employment rates and GDPs between USA and Western European countries are huge.

"The system is broken and employers can't afford it"
>You are right, but they have no business funding it anyway. Your employer does not pay your health insurance. They simply reduce your salary appropriately and send that money to an insurance company.
Employers would not have more money to spend. All that money would be in the hands of government through higher taxes.

I will now solve all health care problems for you:
"We, Congress, hereby admitting that we possess no knowledge of health care and pass health care legislation for the sole purpose of buying votes, revoke every piece of health care legislation ever written, and due solemnly swear upon punishment of death to never pass any new legislation pertaining to health care."
---The cost of health care would drop like a stone.

Why would you want the same governmnet that runs education, housing projects, and Social Security to be in charge of your health care. When is enough of government intrusion into our lives enough. I just want the governmnet to leave me alone.
We are all slowly becoming indentured servants to what is now a $2.7 Trillion government. Enough.

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“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
-Thomas Jefferson

Answer 2

socialistic health care (that you're asking about) is good in that it pays for everything, BUT instead of emergency care when you need it when you're in pain you will have to wait months and months for an appointment. Maybe you as a young person could take the pain but elders cannot, and our society is heavily laden with elders and moreso as the baby boomers begin to retire. What if you had a sick child who needed immediate care and you couldn't get in to have a doctor at least look at the child let alone help them, would you still choose socialistic healthcare? I think not. Besides, the countries that have socialistic healthcare say it doesn't work. Where do you think the money would come from for socialistic healthcare? In addition under socialistic health care doctors would have to be paid less. Currently they are being paid less in California because they are getting cheated by immigrants and every day we see fewer and fewer people wanting to be doctors or staying in the business.

You touch upon a second point. Currently republicans have done super well at companies doing business overseas, and having as they say "everyone who wants a job has one" and the US is doing well...if you choose a democrat, as it appears many did last night in the election, then that would be stunted, so I question how much more money you are thinking would be brought into business since more democrats have won the races, since the proof in the pudding has been the opposite.

Answer 3

It's a big question and it doesn't have an easy answer.

For starters, the conservatives represent the well-off who have a vested interest in keeping state-of-the-art health care unaffordable to the majority of population. If there was a national health system, doctors (including really good and famous ones) would have no problem treating poor patients (the government is paying, so it doesn't matter if the patient can afford the doctor), so wealthy patients would see their treatment options shrink simply because poor patients' options would improve.

Then, there's a question of bureaucracy and inefficiency. Conservatives are absolutely okay with bureaucracy and inefficiency in the private sector, but they are infuriated by bureaucracy and inefficiency in the public sector. The fact that one big public-sector bureaucracy can actually be cheaper than 20 smaller independently operating private-sector bureaucracies is duly ignored...

Then, there is a generally legitimate argument about funding medical innovation. Right now, a lot of medical break-throughs cost a fortune. But, given a steady supply of wealthy patients, the delivery can be perfected and prices could come down to the level accessible to the general public (this is essentially what happened to laser sight correction). In a single-payer system, there could be an incentive for the payer to keep prices artificially low and thus discourage development of new treatments.

Finally, there is a question of budgetary priorities. The U.S. is unique among the industrialized nations not only in that it does not have a national health care system, but also in that it spends an unusually high percentage of national income on defense. And this is not a coincidence, it's a choice. Defense contractors contribute a lot to political campaigns (over $13 million in the 2006 election cycle, excluding the so-called "Levin funds"); since 1996, they gave about two dollars to Republicans for every dollar given to Democrats. So U.S. Congress repeatedly and consistently favors defense over health care...

Answer 4

It does in one form or another in every industrialized country on earth except the United States, which has a broken hybrid system.

The insurance companies don't want to change this broken hybrid system because it makes them lots of money. They can insure the healthiest people and pass on the unhealthy and costly individuals to Medicare, Medicaid or Charity to pay for. The insurance companies pay Republicans lots of money in lobbying fees to prevent this broken system from being fixed.

By the way, there is a post down below that misrepresents one of the central features of socialized medical insurance. The poster tries to scare people with the "rationing" monster. OUR health-care system rations care right now, but it does so irrationally and unethically. If there is too much demand on a given day in a national health system, the doctors have to operate like a triage. They will take the most critical cases and tell the others to make an appointment. In our system, those who can afford care for their hypochondria are treated, while those with congestive heart failure die on the street because they can't afford to see a doctor.

Market rationing of health-care is immoral. Market rationing is only ethical if people have choices! You can't choose to get a pimple instead of cancer.

If we fixed our system as you describe, there would also be savings from the lower administrative expense. Our premiums wouldn't be going for mahogany desks, private jets, advertising and country club memberships for insurance company CEO's.

Answer 5

This idea can work, and in many countries does work fairly well. We have partially implemented this here, with federal programs like medicare &medicaid, and smaller scale programs, like New York's Family Health Plus. The larger the job, the longer it takes to plan, and the harder it is to find a solution that people like enough to spend their tax money on it.

The US health system does have its upsides. It's quite common for people who have free health care in their native countries to come here for treatment. People here don't just hope to have access to premium services, they expect to have access to premium services. If a hospital just decided to make do without a million dollar MRI machine, we'd be shocked. We expect to be able to talk to a specialist if something happens. If you had testicular cancer, would you want any old doctor to treat you? Probably not, you'd probably want to talk to a doctor who specializes in chemo, and a surgeon who's experienced with this type of operation. Even people on medicare get that much.

Of course, there are huge gaps in the healthcare system here, and it's extremely expensive. However, if we want to cut costs for employers and patients, we could do comparatively easy things, like eliminating the costs of malpractice insurance, by capping/preventing malpractice lawsuits. (It might also make expensive tests for unusual problems less common... doctors will often order extra tests, MRI scans, ect just in case.)
I don't think changing the malpractice lawsuit rules is necessarily a good idea, but any plans to create a national healthcare system are likely to have some features which are even more unappealing. What compromises would you be willing to make?

Answer 6

Conservatives often have very little faith in government, and they see a national health care system as giving more power to government.

Also, generally speaking, conservatives are wealthier, more privileged people. They already have good health insurance, and they don't feel inclined to change a system that works for them.

I also believe that racism is a big reason why we're the only rich country without universal health care. Our country became accustomed to separate and unequal facilities for white and black people, especially the schools and housing, and to a large degree in employment. Many white people don't think that blacks and browns should have access to the same level of health care that they have.

Answer 7

I think you answered your question with your first sentence.

Conservatives generally support business...By implementing a national health care system, you eliminate (a) the insurance companies and their business, (b) the for-profit hospitals and their business, and (c) the doctors & clinics, along with their business.

It's just too much government involvement in a person's personal life for most Conservatives to stomach.

Answer 8

Why are Republicants working classified ads against the NHS? that may no longer the U.ok., and our wellness care gadget (even after the reforms) does no longer resemble the NHS in any way, shape or form. i assume they simply prefer to scare human beings.