Medicare for all (our version of govt healthcare) won't happen due to the political barriers which are a huge mountain to overcome. I am a proponent of it even though it might cost me my job if it ever happens. It's wrong what happens to people over here and I want to see the abuses of the current system stop. Here is why:
1) Most people pay around $200 a month for an individual insurance policy and their employer pays the rest. What people often do not realize is that 'the rest' is on average 82 percent of the cost of the premium. What is so insidious about the current system is that if you lose your job, your employer stops paying. So, all of a sudden, at the time you are most vulnerable, your healthcare policy goes from costing you $200 a month to $1000 per month. You have no job and you now also probably have no healthcare, or a thrash healthcare policy that you are forced to buy since Obamacare made it mandatory for everyone to have a healthcare policy. Even if you are not unlucky and don't lose your job, you have to live with the fear of this hanging over you.
2) People often point to the cost to the govt of Healthcare. Currently, Medicare is for people over the age of 65. You cannot enroll in it until you are 65 years old. The two exceptions to this are if you are disabled or if you have end stage renal disease and are on dialysis or have had to have a kidney transplant. That is a very small amount of people though so it is mostly just for seniors. The cost of the program is currently around $600 billion per year. That is about 14.3 percent of total govt expenditure. It is projected to double in the next 20 years due to the baby boomers retiring. So, just catering to seniors, within 20 years, it will cost almost 30 percent of total govt expenditure. How can we afford to include everyone in this program is what people on the right will say and they do have a point.
However, they are generally overlooking two facts. 1. Almost everyone currently in the program is a high risk member since you generally need more healthcare services, the older you get. Obvioulsy, this means that if you include people from 18-65 in it, you get healthy people who are paying the medicare part B premium of around $230 per month and who will not use it much. So, it's difficult to come up with a good estimate on how much it will cost to include all of these new people.
2. If we transfer responsibility from the employers to cover healthcare to a govt program like Medicare, that will be a massive cost off American company's books and we could make them pay a medicare tax in order to try to offset any shortfall in govt funds to pay for the new single payer system. Some companies (those that don't work in healthcare) would probably be very happy to do this as it will still cost them less.
There are other reasons other than these two that I won't get into but these are the two main points in favor of making the change. I wish it were possible but I am a realist so I know it won't happen, not at least until there is a tsunami of public opinion in favor or making the change. But, I really do hate the system we currently have. It's so unfair on so many people.
