RE: Healthcare is a basic human right.
In order for everyone to have healthcare taxpayers will have to pay for it. Why should I be required to pay for your healthcare? I work between 50 and 80 hours a week, every week. Yep, I'm greedy, sure am. Nobody has ever said to me "Hey, you stay home today, I'll go to work for you so that you can get the check."
Same goes for childcare, free college, free housing, subsidized housing, subsidized businesses, damn near EVERYTHING that we pay for honestly.
Wonder what Laura Hilliers family thinks of Canadian style healthcare? She needed a bone marrow transplant due to leukemia and there simply weren't enough beds to accommodate her, even though there were people who matched her type and were willing to donate, she DIED waiting.
Numerous donors were a match with Laura and ready to donate, but Hamilton's Juravinski Hospital didn't have enough beds in high-air-pressure rooms for the procedure.
Yes taxpayers would pay for everyone's healthcare, but it would cost much less for the working class. Employers would save money not having to deal with insurance companies, and employees would save tons of money because they would no longer be paying premiums deductables and high prescription costs. You are already paying in to Medicare and Medicaid. So we ramp Medicare up to include everyone, and in turn do away with all the costly paperwork and extra fees ($100 per pill of aspirin in a hospital for instance). It can be done, and it would help everyone.
Your example above is an awful situation, and I feel for her family, but don't forget right now we have panels of people in suits at insurance companies that decide if people live or die based on what they can afford. Further more, millions of Americans have already gone into life crushing debt just to pay their medical bills. I am one of them! The greed of insurance companies has gotten out of control, and we need relief.
Also, I would like to add that even if we did have a single payer system, it does not exclude the possibility of having private practices where wealthy people could pay a premium for any care they wanted... Which is essentially what we already have, except everyone is currently forced to buy into it, and thus going broke to stay alive.