Majority Of Americans Want A Bernie Sanders Single-Payer Healthcare System

Bernie Sanders has shown his forward thinking prowess once again as a Gallup poll shows that the majority of Americans, Republicans included, would prefer to replace Obamacare with a completely new single-payer healthcare system like the one that Bernie Sanders has long been advocating. Republicans have been demanding that the Affordable Care Act be replaced for quite some time now, wanting to “repeal and replace it,” but they haven’t ever been able to define exactly what sort of healthcare system would be replacing Obamacare.

While Hillary Clinton had, in the past, been pushing to improve the Affordable Care Act and expand upon it, Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, would like to completely overhaul health care in America. Polls show that he is not alone in wanting to do this and that most Americans agree that a single-payer healthcare system makes the most sense.

A Gallup poll that was conducted in May of last year asked what kind of healthcare system Americans would most prefer. Siding with Bernie Sanders, over half of Americans surveyed agree that a single-payer healthcare system would best serve the United States.

Those who agree with a single-payer healthcare system include 41 percent of Republicans. And while many Republicans hold differing opinions about Bernie Sanders’ idea of a single-payer healthcare system, the majority of them have never been overly keen on Obamacare, which most likely influenced their decision in this poll, as the Washington Post reported.

Last year, 2,000 doctors were also advocating for a Bernie Sanders-style, single-payer healthcare system when they wrote an editorial in the American Journal of Public Health advocating for a single-payer healthcare system, as the Inquisitr noted. The editorial described the myriad amount of abuses possible with the Affordable Care Act if Americans don’t, at some point, change their views on healthcare. The doctors have pointed out that a single-payer healthcare system would offer all of the advantages that Bernie Sanders has pointed out, with none of the drawbacks of Obamacare.

“A single-payer NHP, in contrast, would provide comprehensive coverage without co-payments or deductibles to everyone in the country, replacing our current complex and wasteful patchwork of coverage. All medically necessary services would be covered, including in-patient, outpatient, and dental care, as well as prescription drugs. The NHP would also cover long-term care, a benefit that few Americans currently enjoy.”

Remember: we are still the only major country to not guarantee health care to all its people. We’ve got work to do. pic.twitter.com/HcbZbcmImW

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) March 24, 2017

While there are those who say that it would be impossible for Americans to trust the government and a federally-funded healthcare system, the fact remains that the government of the United States, at this time, is already responsible for paying two-thirds of the cost of healthcare in America.

If the United States adopted the plan of Bernie Sanders and put in place a single-payer healthcare system, administrative costs would be reduced drastically and inflated prices and overspending would be eliminated. To illustrate this point, the administrative costs of Medicare are only 2.5 percent, whereas it is four to five times that amount with managed care plans that are private.

Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, who helped to write the AJPH editorial, believes that Obamacare doesn’t work well enough to get those who need it the most access. In the Managed Care magazine in 2010, Dr. Woolhandler compared the Affordable Care Act with giving “a cancer patient Tylenol or aspirin when the person needs a surgeon. It might relieve the pain, but it is not solving the problem.” She also points out that all developed nations in the world have some kind of national healthcare program like the single-payer healthcare system that Bernie Sanders would like to bring about.

“Every other developed nation has used not-for-profit national health insurance as a mechanism to get to universal coverage, and that is what is needed in the United States.”

In the wake of the disintegration of Republican efforts to replace Obamacare, Bernie Sanders spoke at a town hall meeting in Hardwick on Saturday and said that “in a couple of weeks” he plans to introduce a single-payer healthcare bill in Congress, according to VPR. Bernie Sanders believes that even Republicans might be willing to consider his “Medicare for all” idea, especially in light of the defeat of the Republican healthcare bill.

“It is a common sense proposal, and I think once the American people understand it, we can go forward with it.”

What do you think about a single-payer healthcare system and do you believe that the proposed new bill by Bernie Sanders could work?

[Featured Image by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]