Single payer is certainly socialized public healthcare, but not all socialized public healthcare is single payer. I think Americans are predisposed to treat it as an either-or because Canada, which is used most often for comparisons by virtue of being the country with which relatively more Americans are familiar, is single payer. However, many European countries aren't, and there's no discernible pattern for countries with single payer being better than other forms of public healthcare.
I think pushing for single payer specifically is one of the biggest mistakes of the American left, because it's that much harder to sell in US due to more restrictions - and that's inherent in the model. If we took something like the German model instead, I think we'd be way ahead by now.
I think pushing for single payer specifically is one of the biggest mistakes of the American left, because it's that much harder to sell in US due to more restrictions - and that's inherent in the model. If we took something like the German model instead, I think we'd be way ahead by now.
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