It is interesting, isn't it? We're single payer in Australia - for the most part. Medicare here is a 2% levy on everyone's taxable income - unless you have private health insurance, in which case you don't pay the 2%.

I honestly have never needed anything more than the service that Medicare provides. My eldest daughter's getting her tonsils out next week - nothing out of pocket. My youngest daughter was an elective caesarian - nothing out of pocket. Broken arms, emergency room trips - never paid a cent.

Private you get fancy stuff like physiotherapy, dental, chiropracty etc. I've no problem paying out of pocket for these rarely required services, given that keeping me alive is covered by Medicare.

Having said all that though, because it's been part of our system here for so long the cost to the government is nowhere near what the US would be. Here, the total cost of Medicare is estimated to be $75.4BAUD. Given that our population is around the 24 million mark, and around 10 million have private cover, that's around $5385 per person (not all of whom are paying in, of course). Sounds like the estimates over there are much higher, which may well make the system unfeasible.

So while single payer sounds good, if you can't get the costs down first, it's a money pit.

Having said all that though, the point was more to mention that our per-person costs are substantially lower than those quoted in the US.