I don't think Democrats (or Republicans when they take power) are clever/smart/kind/honest enough to offer universal single-payer healthcare without rationing. Is there an intent to take my health care choices away, and is that intent benevolent or malicious?

You paint a very abstractly wonderful picture, so let's assume yes and benevolent if rationing is to be expected given the finite tax base. I still need more details before I get on board with your plan.

First of all, my employer and I pay through the nose for my decent healthcare right now. Under your universal single-payer healthcare system, will I still be able to pay quadruple-through-the-nose to buy supplemental insurance such that I can still continue to get halfway decent service when I want it? Or, am I going to be stuck with everyone else waiting for rationed care out of fairness?

Also, are you planning to cap salaries of doctors and profits of hospitals and insurance companies out of fairness? (You think it's hard to get quality specialist care now??)

A different opinion from yours goes something like this: US health care is so expensive and inaccessible to 10% of the population because government got involved. The federal government twisted the HC system into a bureaucratic pretzel with no market forces to control costs. The absurd system we have now is a consequence of letting busybody crusaders and insurance company cronies write the laws.

I am not saying that viewpoint is accurate, but it's worth getting diverse voices into the discussion so that we don't wind up with an unhealthy progressive monoculture here on HN.

If we talk to each other like friends that have differing opinions, then we can find lots of little improvements that a majority of us can agree on, like maybe up-front pricing in hospitals or tort reform. If we can bring costs down and make health care more accessible to more people, then maybe we won't feel forced to take risky steps like forcing everyone to cede their personal health care choices to indifferent government pencil pushers.

Reaching out to you as a friend, I feel we both want the same thing - to have the maximum number of people possible receive quality care. I feel we're both frustrated that the current system is so unfair in so many ways.

I'm not opposed to setting up a safety net, as long as it doesn't get out of hand cost-wise or turn into a racket for the cronies. I'm thinking like mending broken bones, treating infections, vaccinations, most generics, and addiction treatment all should be abundant, cheap and/or free. Panacea it would not be with a fixed budget so that as a program it cannot grow to crony levels. You could sell me on providing basic health services like that because it just makes sense economically and public health-wise.

And I hope you're not opposed to weeding out waste, fraud, and abuse as one approach (of many) to fix a broken system. If we can get costs demonstrably down, maybe you'd even be open to deep cuts in existing nondiscretionary programs like medicare that have insane unfunded liabilities and will eventually crush us.

Maybe there is a middle ground that satisfies between us politically such that we can move forward together rather than lurching crazily right and left every 8 years.