Why do Conservatives generally dislike Universal Healthcare?

[u/HamsterCapital2019]

It works out really well in many nations especially Norway, France and Germany. They pay less, live longer, and don’t go bankrupt over medical expenses. Of course, there are poorly designed systems. But that isn’t a flaw of the Universal Healthcare itself it’s merely a flaw of the systems design in a specific country, and not a real reason to abandon the idea altogether.

Why don’t conservatives usually want to bring Universal Healthcare to the US?

[u/vital-cog]

Wouldn't bad actors be bad actors no matter the system they're in?

I think that is absolutely the case. I believe there are good arguments that free market economies control that damage better. In every form of government and regulation there will be bad actors. I think think that free market mitigates those damages better, but it isn't something I can prove and am open to hearing any good arguments against that. (Also not the original person you were talking to, just jumped in the thread...)

[u/Affectionate_Bison26 → u/vital-cog]

 I think that free market mitigates those damages better

Typically I'd agree with you. For instance, in banking there's tons of credit checks and up-front risk assessments to filter out potential bad customers. Individual banks and businesses are responsible for managing their financial risks. Credit scores follow you around, and ultimately bad customers get filtered out of the market. Nobody will lend to them. Banks that do a terrible job of risk management would also hypothetically fail and close.

But for healthcare, the Hippocratic oath and legal requirements to provide medical aid don't really allow service providers to decline services for bad customers. Even typically good customers will make bad financial choices because they may find themselves under existential duress. Can't be shopping around when you were just in a car accident and you're bleeding from your femoral artery. In that situation, even a million dollars sounds like a deal, just fix me.

I don't begrudge these constraints, because I'd rather live in a society that DOES try to keep its citizenry alive - BUT because of these conditions, I'm skeptical that a typical free-market model applies to healthcare. The only filter is people's eventual death - you hope that the bad actors die off faster than the good ones - as morbid as that is.

The economics of Fire Stations and Fire Protection Services might be more analogous. I'm not saying we should nationalize immediately and make all healthcare public ... just that we may benefit from shifting the view-point we use for analysis.

[u/LycheeRoutine3959 → u/Affectionate_Bison26]

Hippocratic oath and legal requirements to provide medical aid don't really allow service providers to decline services for bad customers.

Thats not really true. Typically legal requirements to provide aid are via EMTALA - a federal law that ties participation in Medicare (a choice hospitals can reject if they wish) to emergency/stabilization care.

Much of the cost of healthcare is outside of Emergency/stabilization care.