[lukeschlather]

This is a really good talking point, but the fact is the existing (mostly private) healthcare system is huge, expansive, riddled with inefficiencies, and is a disappointing product.

Saying that the new government healthcare system is inefficient and disappointing is not enough to malign it - it has to be equally or more inefficient and ineffective than the system it's replacing.

[ctdonath]

No, we're saying that due to extensive prior experience we expect the new government healthcare system will be more inefficient and more disappointing than the existing (mostly private) healthcare system - and that's taking into account that the latter is huge, expansive, riddled with inefficiencies, and is a disappointing product.

Just because option A sucks doesn't mean we should prefer option B which we justifiably expect will be (and is rapidly proving to be) much worse.

Oh, BTW: my nontrivial experience with the existing (mostly private) healthcare system is that it works very well, thank you very much, now please keep your hands & laws off it.

[hga]

Except it wasn't even vaguely "mostly private", I touch on that in some detail elsewhere in this sub-thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6528332