system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5:Why can't the US just copy healthcare systems such as the UK and Canada?

I know it is really complicated. But couldn't the US just slowly over time start to do the same thing that Canada and the UK are doing to have free healthcare?
gpt
Much of it has to do with differing ideologies regarding public welfare in the U.S. compared to our European counterparts.  In the U.S. healthcare is considered a matter of personal responsibility -- or at least that's the stated position of those who oppose it.  

Many of those in the U.S. with the best health insurance fear that (1) a public option will diminish the quality of American healthcare by undermining the profitability of practicing medicine, thereby encouraging the best and brightest to seek other careers and creating a shortage of good doctors, and (2) that giving everybody state supplied full coverage will create delays in receiving care and surgery because of long waiting lists.  

Neither of these fears is well founded, since the supply of doctors and other healthcare providers is proportionally equivalent for our population.  These are just fears created by the American Medical Association, which is one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in Washington.

Ultimately, the real reason why we don't adopt a European-style single payer system is that the U.S. is one of the most fractured societies in the developed world.