Most Americans are stupid and don't have the capacity to understand the intricacies of health insurance/care in this country.
There are a couple of realities that people don't understand and that Obamacare addressed:
#1) For pre-existing conditions, by sending these Americans into high risk pools you make their costs prohibitively high enough that they can't get health insurance. The pool of Americans that can afford $15,000 a month in healthcare is about zero so these people are either A) sentenced to death(the christian thing to do) or B) They don't get any form of insurance, default on medical bills, and burden the American people anyway(this is what happens). Obamacare allowed us to collect something from these high risk pools by forcing them to get insurance in exchange for monthly payments to a insurance plan.
#2) ER visits, which you cannot legally turn away for financial reasons, are THE most expensive form of healthcare. They are also the most used for non-emergency services because you can't go to a cheaper PCP if you don't have health insurance. Obamacare attempted to reduce overall costs by driving down emergency room visits and therefore costs but I'd argue it didn't go far enough. Single payer allows the pool to always opt for the lowest cost for the service needed.
#3) Drug prices. Drug prices are high in this country because the government allows them to be. The pharmaceutical industry spends billions a year convincing people that they need high drug prices to drive innovation for new products when that simply is not true. The government already subsidies medical research through the NIH and the high drug prices are just to pilfer American citizens. Other countries don't put up with that shit and therefore spend far less in drugs than America. Single payer basically makes the government the only negotiating entity and can drive down drug costs to be in line with the rest of the world.
#4) Healthcare is not a normal market. I'm all for the free market but the reality is, if you took any Econ course greater than 101, you'd understand how unique the healthcare market is. For example, the price of a service is by an "invisible hand" that guides the buyer and the seller into a market clearing price. If they can't agree, the buyer can find another seller until an agreement is made. Now imagine you are having a heart attack and you need medical attention within the next 5 minutes or you will DIE. You aren't going to go to hospital A and say "How much to treat a heart attack"? and if the price is too high you aren't going to drive 20 minutes to Hospital B and try the same thing. In addition, you don't know all the services you will need upon entering therefore the price isn't always transparent(maybe you need a stent, maybe you need to use the AED machine, maybe you need a blood transfusion, etc.) With single payer, the government can look at data and go "We will reimburse you X dollars for Y service based on historical cost" and the hospital can either agree or close. They will agree just like every other country on the planet because they want to make money too.
#5) Early treatment. The earlier you catch a disease/issue the cheaper the issue is to resolve. The problem is, with the current system, going to the ER room when the issue materializes instead a disaster is the highest cost/worst outcome. If we had single payer, people can catch diseases earlier by going to the PCP for annual physicals and therefore reduce total aggregate costs.
Anyways, that's just some of the examples of the realities that Americans don't understand. Obamacare isn't great, but it did push the issue in the right direction and reversing that direction is absolute insanity. If anything, Obamacare should be scrapped and replaced with Single Payer insurance for all paid through taxes.
