There's the rub, right there. The fact is, people DO pay for it themselves, always. The only question is whether they pay for it directly, as in a fee-for-services arrangement, or indirectly through insurance companies, co-ops, government-run agencies, or what have you.
Any structure other than fee-for-services necessarily adds overhead to the system. Insurance companies add a lot of overhead, and government adds even more.
Under most universal systems, the cost is redistributed out, scaled, as with a tax system. Government cannot be trusted, at all, to govern healthcare wthout looking at it from a “What about the poooooooor?” mindset.
Exactly....We pay $700 a month just to HAVE insurance, if we never saw a doctor, never bought a pill.
Then there’s co-pays, deductibles...etc. etc. etc.
What we have is broken, but nonetheless universal healthcare is NOT the answer!