Why I Worry About Single-Payer Health Care, Part #, Uh, Whatever
The best answer, of course, as to why single-payer is bad is that the single-payer will not be me, and therefore will not make trade offs about my health, money, time, etc. in the same way I would. One of the many problems with polling on issues like this is that someone asks a question like "Are you satisfied with your health care" and when XX% of people say "no", the person using the poll goes on to postulate that the people are dissatisfied for Y reason. But people may be dissatisfied for many reasons. For example, I know that many people's main source of dissatisfaction is that their current insurance company was callous in rejecting them for so-and-so procedure. But do they really think the government is going to be less callous?
Unfortunately, this best answer does not seem to be getting anywhere, so I will offer another answer. Single payer health care will almost certainly lead over time to single provider health care. What is my evidence? Well, that is what happened in K-12 education. And note the very very strong opposition to migrating education from single-provider to single-payer by the exact same people who are the intellectual driving force for some kind of massive new federal intervention in health care. Kevin Drum and Matthew Yglesias both argue that single payer is inherently unfair. So get ready, Walter Reed and the Post Office may soon be teaming up to provide your medical care.
