Conservatives are a funny bunch.
On the one hand, they insist that they "shouldn't have to pay for other people's health care," and so, they oppose a public option, let alone, national health insurance, operated by the state.
But on the other hand, they ignore the rather obvious truth that private health insurance, as with public insurance is a pooled risk system, in which some subsidize the care of others. So, for instance, whereas in a public system the taxpayers shoulder the burden of paying the cost of care for the sick, in a private system, the same subsidy is provided to the sick by the healthy, who are policy holders. After all, it's not as if when we pay our insurance company, they take our money and place it in some private account marked with our name, and then, if we get sick, we get to draw down only on that money we paid in. No. We will draw down on monies paid in by lots of people (especially if we require some kind of catastrophic coverage payout with major costs).
So, whether private or public, we end up "paying for other people." Indeed, the logical goal of someone paying into private insurance is to a) stay healthy, which means, b) they will be paying in more than they take out, and c) they will, in effect, be paying for other people who aren't as lucky to be healthy at a given moment.
Yet, the conservatives who decry paying for others in a public system, have no problem paying for others, thru monthly premiums, in a private system. Which raises the obvious question: WHY?
Well, for some, perhaps it's just stupidity.
For others, perhaps it's the effect of propaganda, which has led them to associate anything "public" with inefficient and bad, and anything private with virtuous. Okay.
But for others, I think it is hard to escape the conclusion that they don't mind subsidizing others via private insurance, because they assume (rightly or wrongly) that those "others" are likely to be like themselves: presumably productive, hard working, contributors to society, who are merely experiencing a tough time, medically, and thus "deserve" care, while they assume that those covered in a public plan would likely be unlike themselves: more likely poor (and therefore, of course, to blame for their own poverty), more likely of color, more likely to be non-English speaking, etc. and thus less deserving of care.
As with any other thing provided "publicly," too often we associate public health care with the racial and class "other." Think, for instance, public housing, public transportation, even public education (increasingly) and what is the image that comes to mind of the folks availing themselves of these things? To ask the question is to answer it.
So when conservatives insist their opposition to public health care is only about a philosophical/ideological debate about self-sufficiency/having to pay for other people, etc., they are, frankly lying. It is about their desire to only subsidize the people they want to subsidize. The people who lives have real value to them. And to hell with the rest.