Well...
I'm an Australian, so I won't say too much.
But we have universal public healthcare of a decent standard, and our economy hasn't gone down the drain. In fact, it's been quite robust over the last twenty years or so. (Which is not to say that I'm particularly impressed with our own political parties either.)
Clearly, a single-payer system would be more efficient for us, too.
Keep private doctors, hospitals, and such, just get rid of this horribly inefficient network of insurers.
In most of the civilized world, you need one or two people to handle the single-payer paperwork at any given office.
In the US, every single provider requires a department to handle literally dozens of different insurers, each with their own paperwork and requirements, and each of which is continually fighting back by contesting the claims. It's an enormous cost.
And the for-profit insurance companies provide another inefficiency by continually draining funds out of the system in the form of payments to shareholders.
It's a nightmare.
But the thing is, we can't just shut all that down and go to single-payer. It would mean throwing thousands of people out of work.
It's a bloated, useless bureaucracy, but the far right won't admit to that because it exists in the private sector, and they only complain about the public bureaucracy.
Still, it's the truth that we cannot just make the switch. It would be too disruptive.
