Your points are not completely unreasonable, but there is more to consider. I agree with you about wasting tax dollars on military affairs in foreign countries, but at least those expenditures are (theoretically) temporary.<p>Consider that many other countries, mainly in Europe, have managed to put in place a single-payer healthcare system over the last 20-30 years. In the time span of governments and the legal system, this is the blink of an eye. Again, consider statistically that eventually someone incompetent is going to be put in place running one of these systems. This happens in government, and it happens in the private sector (how many firms are in the S&amp;P 500 from 20 years ago?). The difference in the private sector is, when failure happens, individuals are free to choose a competing option, and are not forced to continue to pay for the failing one. I&#x27;m sure you&#x27;ve heard the lines about how competition in free markets (truly free, not highly regulated insurance) drive down prices too.<p>Consider also that no benefit system has lasted longer than a generation and been successfully managed by a federal-level government. The closest we have is Social Security, which is well on it&#x27;s way to bankruptcy here in the U.S.<p>Furthermore, the great majority of what are considered good single-payer healthcare systems have been implemented in countries with Parliamentary Style Governments. What this means is when the party in power is no longer doing it&#x27;s job, the citizens or opposing party can vote them out, more or less ASAP. The difference with this and our Constitutional Style Government is that if we elect the wrong person, or they put the wrong person in charge of our healthcare, we have very little power to change the situation for 4 years. In this sense, those Parliamentary Style Governments operate closer to what an actual free-market operates, giving their Citizens much more power over who runs and manages their single-payer healthcare system than we could.<p>The reason we haven&#x27;t tried our own version of it is, because once it is implemented, it is very, very hard to change or roll back. Furthermore, as is with all the data coming out about Obamacare, it is very hard to actually judge whether such a program is actually successful.