Yes, I know. I meant the ongoing discussions about how it should look like when we do get it. A lot of M4A agitprop is built on that notion that it would be uniquely bad in comparison to other countries for US to go for anything other than single payer.
I get why this is, propaganda aside - the only developed country that borders US is Canada, so their health system is the one that Americans are most familiar with, and the one that's most often used as a prop in political debates here. And Canada is single payer...
But even that doesn't fully explain it. For example, all proponents of M4A in US want to implement it on the federal level. Canadian healthcare system was created bottom-up - started in one province due to popular demand, gradually adopted by others as it became obvious that the benefits vastly exceed any downsides, and eventually the feds stepped into the coordinating role, but provinces still retain the final say as they can always opt out of that federal system. So, why can't US do the same? For that matter, why shouldn't the states be able to decide for themselves whether they prefer the Canadian model, the German one, or the Swiss one - and then we can see which one works better here? I never got coherent answers to any of those questions.
I get why this is, propaganda aside - the only developed country that borders US is Canada, so their health system is the one that Americans are most familiar with, and the one that's most often used as a prop in political debates here. And Canada is single payer...
But even that doesn't fully explain it. For example, all proponents of M4A in US want to implement it on the federal level. Canadian healthcare system was created bottom-up - started in one province due to popular demand, gradually adopted by others as it became obvious that the benefits vastly exceed any downsides, and eventually the feds stepped into the coordinating role, but provinces still retain the final say as they can always opt out of that federal system. So, why can't US do the same? For that matter, why shouldn't the states be able to decide for themselves whether they prefer the Canadian model, the German one, or the Swiss one - and then we can see which one works better here? I never got coherent answers to any of those questions.