Americans, in general, support government-provided universal health care.
A Pew Research Center survey taken in January found that 60 percent say that it’s the responsibility of the federal government to make sure that all Americans have health coverage. A Morning Consult/Politico poll in April found that support for a single-payer health system outweighs opposition, by 44 percent to 36 percent (with 19 percent unsure). A Gallup poll turned up similar results. In fact, support for universal health care isn’t a recent phenomenon; it was high before the bruising political battles over the Affordable Care Act:
There are several models of universal health care. The first is socialized medicine, where the government owns and operates all health care providers. The second is a single-payer system, where the government insures everyone. The third is a public option, where the government offers to insure anyone who wants it, but where people can choose to buy from private insurers. Obamacare, in which the government mandates that everyone buy private insurance and then provides subsidies for those who can’t afford it, is a fourth type of system.
Not all Americans agree, of course. In a recent blog post, Hoover Institute senior fellow John Cochrane likens single-payer health care to single-payer food:
“Is every American entitled to eat?” [really means] “Don’t you think the Federal government should establish an entitlement that every American can have the federal government pay for his or her food, from funds raised by taxation?” Even to that one the answer has to be, no. There is no such law, right or entitlement.
But by drawing an equivalence between health care and food, Cochrane is ignoring the long history of economic research showing that the health care market is very different from others.
In 1963, the great economist Ken Arrow published a paper explaining a number of reasons why health care is unusual. Arrow asserted that if economists care about human welfare, instead of just about overall economic efficiency, they should favor some form of government provision of health insurance.
Widespread popular support for universal health care would come as no surprise to this master economist. Free-market purists such as Cochrane may not acknowledge the power of Arrow’s reasoning – and of the follow-up work of many excellent economists since – but the American people seem to understand.
Noah Smith is a Bloomberg View columnist.
