Many European countries were able to implement universal healthcare without much of a fight because their economies were utterly devastated after WW2, along wit

Many European countries were able to implement universal healthcare without much of a fight because their economies were utterly devastated after WW2, along with their health care systems. (An exception that proves the rule: France nationalized its private insurance companies that survived the war.) So there weren't really any stakeholders arguing for the old system - notably this is not just hospitals and insurers, patients are also stakeholders. One problem with the US is that "universal healthcare" is popular in the abstract, but "we're gonna take away your BCBS plan and put you on Medicaid" is extremely unpopular.[1] The US is actually closer to the Canadian example, though Canada started earlier and doesn't have a Big Pharma burden. But like the US, Canada is a hybrid private-public system with a lot of provincial variation. There wasn't a Canadian federal health law until the 80s, after 20 years of patchwork provincial laws, and Canada continues to have big gaps and inequities (e.g. mental health coverage is quite a bit worse in Canada than the US, dental isn't covered, and people on work visas get screwed). A large majority of Canadians have supplementary private insurance. So I think the US will get close to the Canadian system via slowly pushing up the Medicaid eligibility line and eating away at private insurance, and not a big sweeping law. [1] "Medicare for all" is dishonest, it has to be Medicaid for all. But for classist political reasons nobody wants to say that.