Let's start out with a few facts:
a) Republicans cling tenaciously to an obsolete conservatism. They once may have been. No longer. Barry Goldwater is dead, long gone. This is how conservative syndicated columnist George Will expressed it during the Bush (younger) administration:
Republican Presidential candidate former TX Governor George Bush "ran in 2000 promising to strengthen Social Security, the emblematic achievement of the New Deal, promising to enrich the entitlement menu of Medicare, the emblematic achievement of the Great Society. He has increased education spending and the federal involvement in education. He is the President who has increased the welfare state more than any President since 1965. Bill Clinton is the only modern President to repeal an entitlement program with the signing of welfare reform act. I do think the labels are considerably blurred." George Will / ABC-TV This Week
b) Citizens without healthcare programs get their healthcare at hospital emergency rooms. By law they cannot be turned away without receiving medical care.
its' some of the most expensive medical care our nation provides.
It's simple pragmatic, obvious economics. Replace the most expensive form of healthcare with a more economical form of health care, and total healthcare costs are reduced.
I challenge ANYONE here to successfully refute that fundamental reality.
Whether the legislative abortion named ACA or "Obamacare" was the optimal way to meet those objectives can be debated.
But the underlying logic, the underlying economics would appear to be beyond dispute.
And it's not a hypothetical. In Denmark for example, the nation with the reported highest "happiness quotient*" on Earth, there is healthcare for all.
Single payer is quite popular in some nations where it's implemented efficiently.
There are differences.
Make a change, and there will be winners and losers.
But system-wide, the U.S. healthcare system as constituted before ACA was not optimal, by standard either of per capita cost, or by patient outcome.
* Not the highest per capita $wealth. Greater $wealth does not NECESSARILY translate into greater happiness.