One, existing medical insurers comprise an industry worth tens of billions of dollars and have shown they are willing to every last cent they have on ads and lo

One, existing medical insurers comprise an industry worth tens of billions of dollars and have shown they are willing to every last cent they have on ads and lobbying to oppose such ideas, which of course completely threatens their existence. Any plan has to find a way to funnel them money in order to avoid that. Two, partisan politics has gotten so bad that it is starting to warp and twist people's brains. "Obamacare" was demonized relentlessly by Republicans even though it was essentially a copy of a leading Republican health care plan at the time. The plan originally came from the Heritage Foundation and was championed by Mitt Romney, both of whom immediately turned around and demonized it as soon as a Democrat proposed it. Third, the US right wing is fairly unique compared to the right wings of other countries, it has immense power, and it generally opposes this kind of thing for a variety of reasons. To varying degrees of justification they would tend to dismiss whatever arguments you might make or empirical evidence you might try to cite. Fourth, the average American has no idea what single payer is, and has absolutely no idea that every other country in the rest of the developed world has something like it. Americans have no idea what life is like in other countries. They might know that Canada has some form of socialized medicine but might assume that to be a curiosity unique to Canada; and have never thought much about whether the Canadian system is any good or not. Fifth, Americans would not generally assume that such a thing in any event is within the realm of possibility or competence of the US government. It's been many decades since the US has attempted any grand national experiment like this. Sixth, because racism. Socialist programs would easily be seen as mostly benefitting other races; even if it was not at all true. Politicians can benefit themselves by exploiting this to varying degrees of subtlety.