People want national healthcare on some level. The problem is doing it right when everyone in the congress and senate takes contributions from the health industries.
One party wants universal healthcare, with members that are more sensitive to industry then one would like(though some rightfully so, re-structuring 18% of GDP has consequences). The other party either does not, or in the case of their moderates, they don't care and just blow with the wind depending on what is politically advantageous in the moment(see: Susan Collins).
But the Republicans know that their core values won't fly with the American people, so they just use fear tactics to kill reform of the other side, then sell their reforms on a bed of lies, saying their reform will do what the American public wants, but in reality it doesn't. If like with Bush(or on the state level) they attempt some sort of middle ground, their reform is basically just a form of lemon socialism. Using the guise of free enterprise efficiency to pass the government money to private industry that ultimately ends up costing the taxpayer more. Which then gets used as an additional argument against future reforms(or a justification for more lemon socialism if they want that at the moment).
People I don't think always recognize that this back and forth is not just something that started in the 90's with Clinton, or even the 60's with Johnson, this goes back 100 years. With relatively the same arguments being used(un-American, collectivism, AMA fear-mongering bullshit). Before UHC was socialism or communism it was Prussianism. Before Obama and Clinton, it was Wilson, FDR, and Truman.
