Yeah, it won't work. It works in every other developed nation in the world, and they all pay less money for better healthcare outcomes, but hey, the US is Totally Special.
> It works in every other developed nation in the world
The cost side works in every other developed nation? Surely you're aware of how much more expensive health care costs are in the US, so what might you be referring to?
Friend of mine ended up in hospital in the US for a while. He had an accountant visit him at his bedside! WTF does an accountant have to do with healthcare?!
The US already has single payer for a good fraction of the population and we still spend more than other nations on that fraction. The NHS in the UK can decide that certain treatments are not cost effective but in the US we have people raising the cry of "Death panels! Death panels!" at even vague gestures in that direction. And the US had never had a particularly high level of bureaucratic efficiency compared to most countries.
Which isn't to say that single payer wouldn't be an improvement on the current system. Just don't get your hopes up for how much money it'll save.
> The US already has single payer for a good fraction of the population
No, we don't. Medicare is not single payer, though it has (for a subset of the services covered by Medicare) a default public option; it also has private, partially-public-subsidized pland; Medicaid, at least in many states, is not single-payer, either, even at the state level, even before considering overlap with Medicare and other insurance.
Reminder: the US already spends more public money on healthcare as a percentage of GDP than Belgium, the UK, Switzerland, Finland, Canada and many others.
In addition to being wrong about the massive cost differential, this disparagement also ignores the fact that U.S. longevity hasn't kept pace for decades:
Before I answer this, let me frame my opinion: I very much want single payer in the United States, and were it plausible to do it on a state-by-state basis, I would support it.
Apparently, states are unable to restrict entry into state benefit programs such as healthcare. They can't set up a waiting period for people moving into the state before they are eligible; that was declared unconstitutional by a previous Supreme Court. So if states were to do their own single payer system, in theory sick people could move into the state and immediately gain free healthcare simply by virtue of being a resident. Conversely, they could then move back to their home state that doesn't charge higher taxes.
So it wouldn't be feasible on a state-by-state basis unless a future SCOTUS reverses their precedent. This is unlikely in the short term, given the current Court's make up.
