You cannot compare a system that only has a select few...often those who have been driven into poverty by serious illness...to a system that includes everyone. The bigger the group, the better the deal for everyone involved. Medicaid has a higher proportion of very sick people (since sickness makes you poor in our society) than the general population, which is why it is beset by more problems than a truly single-payer system would be.

This is the kind of intellectual dishonesty that the right engages in on health care. You slam the faults of Medicaid, ignoring that

1) Republican proposals do not include getting rid of Medicaid, they in fact rely on the existence of Medicaid to perpetuate their self-delusion that no one is denied care in this country, since their consciences cannot bear the reality

2) That part of the Democratic plan is to fix Medicaid by making the pool larger, to both prevent people from being forced into poverty by illness and to spread out the costs of the very sick in a more efficient manner

Right now, the healthy and well off are double-dipped; they pay for their co-workers and neighbors health care via an insurance company mediator, who skims a healthy percentage of profit; they then pay again for those too sick to work via Medicaid. Republicans have steadfastly protected this double-dipping, refusing to acknowledge the fact that the healthy are ALWAYS going to be paying for the health care of the sick, in any system. They prop up this delusion that somehow, if their is a profit-making mediator in the middle, people are somehow all just paying for their own care. Nonsense.

a lot more here if you want to read through it all: External Link 

gullyborg: Thanks for the update. That means that about 1/3 of listed treatments are not covered by Oregon Medicaid. Time for that experiment to end!

bgates: I was using the term as Ornstein used it in the article to which I referred.

Riott: Single payer systems, by definition, have budget limits. That leads to reduced care. See NHS, Canada, Medicaid. It can also lead to reduced willingness by physicians to put up with inadequate compensation. See Medicare.

The harsh reality is, there will always be people who need medical treatment, but there is no way to pay for it, and decisions must be made about when to keep trying, and when to give up.

The problem is, single payer systems take away the ability of the individual to seek out multiple options AHEAD OF TIME.

We know that the terminally ill poor are screwed. They can't change insurance and hit their caps and run out of money and end up on Medicaid where government death panels will rule.

But that is not the issue. The issue is that we should all take some responsibility to plan ahead BEFORE we are terminally ill poor, and the free market should be available to give us choices that we then have to live with.

Maybe I think I should spend a little more money today, to get a premium health insurance plan that will provide me with more coverage in a worst case scenario. I should have that right. And in a free market system, there will be providers that will give me the coverage I want, in exchange for a high premium.

But in a single payer system - especially one that at the same time rejects things like medical savings accounts or other alternative methods to pay for services - we have no choices. We have the care given to us, whether we like it or not.

There is no reason that everything has to be "single-payer" vs. current system. Very few countries run on a pure single-payer. Many of them use private insurance but mandate its sale and purchase. This helps level the price of the coverage. The insurers compete for the business of the sick and the healthy.

Let government rate and help subsidize the catastrophic care offered through the properly rated insurers.
Let the non-needy classes pay a reasonable premium based on a choice of these companies in the exchanges. Let our charitable tax free foundations be ready to help out if budgets run out. Hopefully, this will become rare.

If someone can pay for treatment beyond the decision makers' cost setting choices, let them do it. Rich people are the first to use most high priced services. This helps the price go down, and the technology improve so it becomes affordable for everyone eventually.

Not all of us on the conservative side oppose the health care reform law. I prefer private insurers but with a strong dose of government help.

(I have known people who needed very pricey healthcare and had potentially terminal illnesses. The insurers never denied treatment. )