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.