With companies, there is competition.
I disagree that government has to pay attention to the will of the people. And I would point to England as the example with NHS.
I haven't really looked into it enough to be knowledgeable, but my impression is that the NHS is more of a single provider system than a single payer system like they have in Canada.
With single provider, you get a mess like we have with the healthcare our veterans get in the VA system. With single payer like Canada has, you still have competition between the different actual health care providers. It would basically be like medicare is now for people over 65. The lawmakers certainly have to pay attention to the people if they think they'll mess with medicare. And there is still competition between health care providers. Provide poor service, and the patients can go elsewhere.
There is no solution that is ideal for every imaginable case, but I think a Canada style system would at least eliminate a situation where welfare leeches get better health care than our veterans do, or hard working self-employed people with pre-existing conditions do.