Any argument I can make here in text would only serve to make me appear to be against individuals having access to healthcare... and that is not a winnable argument (nobody looks good when they make any stand against a social issue).
The numbers I'm referring can be wide in scope. For example, the economics of providing such a socialized healthcare system are difficult to surmise, however there is a lot of data which may indicate it's not economical at a federal level (maybe at a state level, sure).
Also the numbers of citizens with interest in such a program is low, to date only 8 million US citizens have signed up for the federal/state exchanges, out of around 360 million US citizens; about 2% of the country. Only 16 of 50 states have built local Exchanges, the rest deferring to the Federal Exchange for various reasons including but not limited to the economics behind building such a portal, maintainability of such a portal, and some flat-out refused out of political, moral, or economical principal.
The current program provides almost none of the goals it set out to accomplish.
With the current program, it is still very possible to get a horrible disease such as Cancer, and leave the hospital with $60K+ in bills. The current program made almost no changes to the Pharmaceutical industry, which charges in excess of $300 per pill for some treatments when the cost-to-manufacture is known to be significant multiples less. The current program does not "provide" healthcare to anyone, it merely made it illegal to not have healthcare (with fines imposed if you refuse). The current program provides a way to get access to healthcare (via the government) if you have no other access, however it's arguably not affordable at all (the current program is estimated to cost a family of 4 around $4,000 USD per year -- and it's likely a family of 4 without healthcare might not have it because they could not afford it, nor can afford an extra $4,000 a year... but now it's illegal to not afford it).
I digress. This debate can easily turn into a flame war, and is off-topic for a thread discussing a city implementing municipal high-speed internet.
I agree that the system we have today is very bad. But it isn't socialized healthcare. We're still for the most part paying a number of private companies for our health insurance, which pretty much no other nation does.
Fully socialized health insurance makes a lot more sense than what we have now. I can't think of a single benefit of our "free market" system of insurance providers.
My personal opinion is the government should not even begin to think about implementing a socialized healthcare system until the budget issues are radically solved.
I mean, I could be a lot more healthy if I could afford that gym membership, but I'm busy buying all this beer and junk food instead. I'd have to reduce how much beer and junk food I purchase in order to afford a gym membership. The government is buying a lot of "beer and junk food" programs that make it un-economical to afford such an vast and expansive program in current-day (even though I agree healthcare expenditures are likely a much better choice to fund rather than some of the frivolous and redundant government programs).
Also, we'd need to somehow figure out how to not de-incentivize hospitals from hiring top-tier medical staff, equipment and facilities. There is a risk that if hospitals become more standardized (by means of standardized payments, etc), that it could reduce income revenue, and therefore the overall quality the hospital can afford (hospitals are businesses too). Currently, in socialized healthcare countries, the "everyday joe's" get the local healthcare treatments, while the country's elites fly out-of-country (mostly into the US) for treatments -- possibly because they perceive the treatments to be, or they are more superior to what they can get back at home (idk honestly, this should be studied more).
That's not to say we can't do it... only that our present situation may not allow it until a future time.
