Why is there such Republican opposition to universal health care, and health care reform in general?

It stems from many basic misunderstandings and failures to think logically or critically.

Many people talk about their "freedom" to choose doctors or hospitals. They ignore the simple fact that under our current for-profit system, you don't have that freedom. You go to where your insurance company tells you to go, and you get the treatment your insurance company authorizes you to get.

Some people refer to the Canadian, British, or French health care systems as examples of "failed" universal coverage. If they would bother actually looking or talking to people from those countries, however, they would very quickly discover that no Canadian or Brit would ever trade his own coverage for an American-style HMO. All of those countries also boast longer life-expectancies than we do, have people who visit the doctor more often than we do, and spend much less per capita on health care than we do.

Bottom line, money.

Many people are told healthcare in the USA will get worse if they move to a universal healthcare system. People cite Canadians and others obtaining healthcare in the USA as proof of how good healthcare is in the US, but forget to mention the tourism as people leave the USA to get affordable healthcare elsewhere.

But lobbyists work in Washington paying politicians to spout one view, and also work on the media to tell them scare stories from abroad. What they forget is that the USA has too many scare stories where preventative healthcare is denied.

FACT - the USA spends more on healthcare PER PERSON than any other nation on the planet.

FACT - the US has higher death rates for kids aged under five than western European countries with universal health coverage.

That means that a dead American four year old would have had a better chance of life if they were born in Canada, France, Cuba, Germany, Japan etc, all of which have universal health coverage.

It's a race thing - believing that African Americans would benefit more than others from a universal system, Republicans don't want to pay into it. The same thinking applied to in South Africa under white rule, and in fact, the United States and South Africa were the only two developed nations that had no such system. It's no coincidence that they also had the highest percentages of minorities.

I believe it is a good thing but I do not believe America is ready for it. Reason why I do not believe America is ready for it is due to the fact Universal Health care means treating the most urgent first and those who can be treated by less invasive treatments must submit to them first. This means if you see your doctor on Monday and they say you need a hip replacement you cannot get it done on Tuesday. Instead you may have to go though physical therapy and pain management before you have the surgery. If you look at countries with Universal Health care their life expectancy exceeds that of the US. I think for many Americans admitting their approach to health care is wrong is quite difficult thing to admit.

The one thing I read that there is allot of misinformation about Universal Health care and no one talks about the advantages. For example in the UK any prescription for someone who is working and is between 18 - 65 is $10 regardless of the medication. Second there is no health insurance premium to pay and there is no worrying if your insurance will pay for the treatment. Third you get to choose your health care provider and not a bureaucrat like the Republican Party wants you to believe. Fourth and most importantly your health care is free.

Why I do not believe the Republicans are opposed to it is because I suspect allot of their financial support comes from the drug companies, insurance companies, and medical groups. Insurance companies would see a loss in revenue and employees thereby loosing influence. Drug companies would be subject to some type of pricing regime which would mean a short-term loss of revenue until they learned how to cope with the regulation. Medical groups would see medical professional incomes being stabilized and would have to change how they operated. Hence a surgeon would not be able to operate without exploring less invasive procedures first.

Finally why I think Republicans oppose Universal health it is twofold. First it would mean people would be living longer. For the Republicans it would mean more money would be needed for Social Security to deal with the longer life expectancy. Second many older people do not vote Republican and so those voting would not be voting for them. Hopefully Steele will get the Republican Party out of the 80's and finally get them to stand for something other than opposing the Democrats.

Look at the cost projections for Social Security and for Medicare. These two programs alone will soon put us in the poorhouse. And you want the federal government which could not run a two car funeral to take over all the health care in America? I can't foresee a positive outcome from such a blunder.

well it just simply doesn't work, I have family in canada and they absolutly hate it, they have to wait for an extremely long time just to be seen, and when push comes to shove the government has the power to decide if they will allow you to have certain treatment. universal health care is not free, our taxes will be raised significantly, and I do not like being told which doctor I can go to and when, that's communism. It is a failing system that everybody paints to be wonderfull, but when you research it, it is a really bad system. Take southern Ireland for example, their UHC was going bankrupt so they decided to stop testing blood before transfusion, all the sudden the hepatitis and aids virus started going up, it turns out it was from all the blood the government wouldn't test, and was given to innocent unaware people, and you can't sue the government so nothing was done about it whoops! Besides that right now we have several types of insurances, that are going bankrupt, are poorly run and failing caresource, molina, medicaid, medicare, hmm.... these are all government run programs, if they can't handle and succeed at these healthcare programs, then what makes you think they will succeed if they control it all? The government has no bussiness in healthcare and needs to stop trying to control everything, they are already in the banking, real estate, and car company bussiness, now they want to control healthcare, pretty soon we won't be able to fart without having a permission slip from the government, plus the taxes for polluting the air!

It is communism, I'm not saying that if we adopt this that we will be a communistic country, I'm just saying that UHC is a communistic ideal, and why do people thing healthcare is a right, ok there are people without insurance, but there are also people without vehicles, and can't work because of that and can't get a vehicle because they can't work so should we provide everybody with a car? there are so many things that many people have that others don't, but we can't provide everybody with everything, yes the insurance companies need to be smacked down a couple of notches, the problem can be solved very easily without resorting to UHC. I do feel bad for people without insurance, but then again I didn't have insurance for many years and I made it through and didn't expect it to be given to me. there are already government programs to help people without insurance, and they are failing, and they are actually hurting our healthcare because there reimbursment rates are horrible, so hospitals and doctors offices keep raising there prices so they will get reimbursed more fairly, alot of facilities get over 50% of there revinue from welfare programs, so they really take a big cut, I know this because I work in an emergency room and I also used to work in billing

Because after talking to many Canadian friends, I don't like the idea of long waits, the government deciding what treatment and when I get it, etc. I also want to be able to pick my own doctors.

I don't really think the health care is what needs reforming in this country, as much as it is the insurance companies and lawyers that have gotten involved. I have seen 2 fantastic doctors in my area have to retire because they can no longer afford to pay for malpractice insurance. The lawsuit happy lawyers are responsible for such high premiums.

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While the utopian dream of having everyone in the country covered is honorable, the reality is we can't afford it. You need look no further than Canada to see the financial costs of such an endeavor. If Canada had to pay for its Defense, they wouldn't be able to pay for Health care either.

It's all down to cost, I think. The Right are always obsessed with penny-pinching and reducing costs. Funny though how they can always find the cash when they want it - like the way billions of dollars were available to squander in a country where we had no business.