I had a good conversation about health care at work
It seemed productive and can be replicated. In all candor, I am
not creating new answers or a new approach. Still, perhaps some might
be encouraged by it or find it interesting and helpful.
I pointed out to my supervisor that I became a Democrat in graduate school. My supervisor said that it was okay, as long as I took a moderate approach. She said that health care was a good example. She said that we should have a private / free market approach to health care.
I responded that this was the approach that the Affordable Care Act took.
She said that she thought that the free market would produce better results.
I said that we actually had worse health care outcomes - being 37th according to the World Health Organization and that the best outcomes were generally those produced by countries with Single Payer. I pointed out that this is true because of the large purchasing power of the federal government.
I said that there are some things that only the federal government can do well, when we pool all of our resources together. I asked her to imagine a world in which everyone had their own weapon in order to attempt to defend their own property and country, as individuals. I asked her to imagine if everyone had to individually buy their own roads and parts of roads instead of having a national highway system.
She said that the problem with that is that only a few people would be making the decisions. I pointed out that this is why we have a representative democracy. And, of course, from the consumer point of view, it is difficult to imagine a substantially reduced variety of options as a necessary consequence of a Single Payer system, certainly not regarding medically necessary procedures.
I think that I gave her a lot of things to think about. It was an amicable conversation and it appeared to be productive, moving her closer to understanding why Single Payer is the best choice for health care.