Suppose you’re a quietist about political outcomes. You’ll have strong political views, passions even: you’ll eagerly support some political proposals, and just as eagerly oppose others. But you’ll do those things without concern about outcome. You’ll do them, instead, out of love: the weight of your loves will move you irresistibly into some particular political embrace. And to love a political proposal is an act different in every interesting way from caring about the outcome of loving it.
Suppose, too, that you believe in the convertibility of the transcendentals: that what is true is beautiful and what is beautiful is good and what is good is true. (All good Catholics should believe this.) Then, your political loves will, you will think, be responsive to what is beautiful; and you will advocate what you advocate politically because it is beautiful, and oppose what you oppose because it is ugly. So also, mutatis mutandis, for truth/falsity and good/evil.
Faced, then, with a proposal to reform healthcare in the USA, you will advocate what you advocate and oppose what you oppose not because of calculations about outcome, but because of beauty. On this ground, everything is clear: access to healthcare is a right, a condition for human flourishing; a system that makes access contingent upon features extraneous to being human — such as having paid work — is ugly. Attempts to redress the ugliness by insurance compound it: insurance is part of the ugliness, not part of the beauty. The proper solution, the one to advocate with passion, is universal free access. That is the starting point.
This is not an argument. It is a picture.
