Insurance is basically adding a middleman to socialized healthcare, one whose sole motive is to make more profit for its investors. Which in itself is a sore contradiction to the very idea of socialized healthcare.
There are 2 routes of providing socialized healthcare - either create a top down centralized model like the UK NHS or like the usually general EU model of creating an ecosystem of private and public players with heavy regulation.
The first model is expensive, prone to bloat and administrative spend and inefficiencies of scale, but allows for healthcare to be institutionalized. Any political party can try to weaken the NHS, but dismantling it even 80 years after its formation is political kryptonite for that party (Tories or Reform). Just like defunding Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid would destroy the Republicans perpetually.
On the other hand, you have the regulated model, which works much more efficiently compared to the former, but if regulations are weakened (which is much easier), the entire model becomes ineffective. Take a look at Swiss healthcare model, one of the best examples of a regulated private market with an insurance mandate, but slowly turning into USA-lite, as insurance premiums creep up and become unaffordable for growing families and low-income residents, because the SVP has been captured by insurance interests.
Obviously, because of the above inherent natures, the first model is often much more preferable than the latter model in hindsight, especially in a country like the US, where regulations are constantly weakened.
There are 2 routes of providing socialized healthcare - either create a top down centralized model like the UK NHS or like the usually general EU model of creating an ecosystem of private and public players with heavy regulation.
The first model is expensive, prone to bloat and administrative spend and inefficiencies of scale, but allows for healthcare to be institutionalized. Any political party can try to weaken the NHS, but dismantling it even 80 years after its formation is political kryptonite for that party (Tories or Reform). Just like defunding Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid would destroy the Republicans perpetually.
On the other hand, you have the regulated model, which works much more efficiently compared to the former, but if regulations are weakened (which is much easier), the entire model becomes ineffective. Take a look at Swiss healthcare model, one of the best examples of a regulated private market with an insurance mandate, but slowly turning into USA-lite, as insurance premiums creep up and become unaffordable for growing families and low-income residents, because the SVP has been captured by insurance interests.
Obviously, because of the above inherent natures, the first model is often much more preferable than the latter model in hindsight, especially in a country like the US, where regulations are constantly weakened.