Are you saying you believe that there are no programs in existence, which are government-run, that are not "shit shows" ?
Of course, there are times when efficiency is not the thing we’re optimizing for. The Space Program is an example of a pretty great government program; there was no profit or benefit to private space travel in the 1950s and 60s so the government had to subsidize it, but now that we are starting to see private business catch up, the best thing to do is get government out of the way. This is not all that different during the Age of Discovery where kings and queens subsidized trans-oceanic travel.
IMHO government should only exist to fix free market deficiencies (Monopolies, unfair competition, fledgling industries, lack of players). Not to take over a market and try to dictate it from the top down. Ultimately the goal should be that all people make enough of a wage to afford healthcare and let the market handle it. And still have a safety net for those who fall through the cracks, but the safety net should never be the goal.
The track record of... Medicare? It's one of the most popular programs in government!
What you've done is just aborb spin. It's true that these people don't trust "The Government" to provide health care, because their thought leaders (and peers like you) keep telling them that. But then they go and enroll in Medicare anyway, and it pays for their care, and because nothing breaks and it's never in the news they don't even think about it.
At some point you'd think the truth would break through, but it just doesn't seem to be happening.
Literally every health care system sucks for someone, it's a complicated problem. But everywhere, both within and outside the US, the systems that work BEST are government-run.
It is also not universally accepted- this is only anecdotal, of course, but I had a doctor tell me he didnt accept it because the rates for some procedures worked out to be below the state's hourly minimum wage.
Perhaps a better example would be the VA- government run hospitals and coverage that is perenially in the news for some new corruption or incompetence scandal, and a very very hit or miss reputation.
Virtually all of the putative working class republicans "opposed to government health care" would be better served by Medicare. Period.
The elderly would get better care if more hospitals and doctors accepted it; there are several ways to achieve this with, I suspect, mixed results.
The social security fund has been “borrowed from” to fund other programs.
The government is clearly in the pocket of big Parma.
The government uses taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street.
The government allocates subsidies based on lobbying groups.
The IRS specifically targeted right wing groups applying for non profit status.
The list goes on and on.
So people on the right are not keen to give that structure more money and power.
It doesn’t matter how successful you may think Medicare is. The power structure and track record of the entity which would manage universal healthcare is abysmal.
I think there is a way to do it which could make the whole program solid and resilient against abuse but the proposals all come from the left who don’t seem particularly interested in resiliency.
What exactly are you talking about? Don’t republicans have a 40+ year strategy of “starve the beast” to purposely make government services worse specifically to build this distrust?