Most Americans Would Prefer Single-Payer Over Obamacare

Despite a persistent assumption that a federal, single-payer healthcare system in the United States is not only too far fetched but too unpopular as an idea to ever be realized, a new poll reveals something rather different.

According to Gallup, most Americans — 58 percent — say they would prefer to see the Affordable Care Act replaced with a government-run health program that would insure all Americans.

The Affordable Care Act, known colloquially as Obamacare, isn’t nearly as popular, as somewhat more Americans would support the repeal of the ACA (51 percent) than would favor keeping it as it is (48 percent). However, it should certainly be acknowledged that support for the ACA has grown gradually since its implementation.

Though a hypothetical single-payer healthcare program seems to be overtaking the ACA in terms of popularity, a significant development on its own, the way opinions break along partisan lines is perhaps the most interesting revelation from Gallup’s poll.

Nearly three-quarters of all Democrats (and those who are Democrat-leaning) say they would like to see the ACA replaced with federal single-payer. Oddly, however, in response to a separate question, a slightly higher number of Democrats and leaners (79 percent) say they want the ACA to remain in place.

Republicans (and their leaners) are particularly surprising in their responses. Though four in five say they would like to see the ACA repealed, surprisingly, half of that group would support implementing single-payer healthcare in its place. Only 55 percent of Republicans say they would oppose that action.

It’s difficult to overstate the profundity of those figures — and their undeniable irony. As a political party, the Republicans have made concerted efforts to successfully derail single-payer healthcare at every turn since its proposal under the Clinton administration in the 1990s.

When President Obama campaigned for it, he quickly met resistance and instead opted to push for what he likely viewed as a middle-ground solution in the form of Heritage Foundation-authored healthcare policy — the Affordable Care Act. Since the ACA was signed into law, Congressional Republicans have made ceaseless, futile efforts to have the ACA repealed.

Why are Republicans and Democrats alike looking to a federally organized single-payer healthcare system? The benefits of the ACA are undeniable. New figures show that 7.4 million Americans became insured between 2014 and 2015. Other studies have found that the number of Americans facing difficulties paying their medical bills have fallen from 22 percent to 17.3 percent since 2013.

As laudable as these figures are, the ACA still has significant blind spots. Last year 28.6 million Americans — almost one in 10 — were still uninsured. And that’s not for trying. Many Americans in low-income jobs earn slightly too much to qualify under the ACA’s expanded Medicaid programs and cannot reasonably afford insurance with out-of-reach deductibles, finding the fines a comparatively preferable alternative.

One of the core pieces of the Affordable Care Act — funding for subsidies paid to private insurers — is already at risk following a recent federal court ruling that determined the White House didn’t have the authority to do this.

Though Congressional Republicans are cheering this, the decision drives at the fundamental flaw of Obama’s healthcare program: It mandates that most Americans purchase private insurance. One of the well-reported aspects of the ACA implementation was the expensive, poorly-designed website meant to pair Americans with a private insurer.

The ACA was largely inspired by policy drafted by the right-wing, pro-private sector think tank known as the Heritage Center — so it should come as no surprise that it promotes private business interests through government policy.

This is a very different approach to healthcare reform in the U.S. than a single-payer program that would, by its very nature, insure all Americans within a system that is not driven by profit (the factor that pushes for the unnecessarily inflation of medical costs).

How can the United States finally get a government-run, universal single-payer program? Despite the majority saying they would back such a policy, only one candidate in the race for president has made this proposal: Sen. Bernie Sanders. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said she’d fight to keep the ACA as it is now, while presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has said he’ll repeal it and replace it (though with what, he has yet to specify).

Colorado, no stranger to experimental and progressive legislation, will have a proposal for statewide single-payer healthcare on ballots this November. If successful, it may prove that the most practical path to such reform in the U.S. may have to happen state by state, rather than on a federal level.

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