I'm not sure how the UK's debt levels are relevant to this discussion. Our external debt has remained static for almost a decade now, and the majority of our public debt followed the 2008 crash (no joke, almost 10% of our entire public debt came from just 2009), with the deficit having since dropped dramatically. As it stands, the UK government spends about the same amount on healthcare (both per capita and as a ratio of GDP) as the US government.

It's not free, we as a country choose to pay higher taxes on average than in the US (and in-fact the majority in the UK are currently in favour of paying more), and there are perfectly valid arguments to be made against the US adopting a similar system. That said, when the US government is already spending similar amounts on healthcare, and US citizens then have to spend that same amount again on average (resulting in a total healthcare bill in the US of almost 18% of GDP, which is staggeringly high), it's understandable that some would be against its current approach. I personally don't think the US should aim for universal healthcare right now, it would be an incredibly long, expensive, and complicated process even if the country was unified in its vision, but there's clearly room for improvements, just as there is in countries that do have NH.

That clip is pretty old but yeah he is a asshole. He somehow managed to get all his employees decent health care even the one that only work part time but somehow universal healthcare for the entire US population is unobtainable.

Innovation or good colleges aren't why US healthcare is almost double the cost of other developed countries despite being largely mediocre in quality.  That higher price tag reflects higher costs to the medical industry, not inflated margins.  That means the bulk of that extra money isn't going directly back to the medical staff itself.

Pretty much all that additional cost has to do with how fucked up our system is.

The number one difference is the massive cost of administration.  Rather than one easy system, billing in the US is a complete mess of different payers and go-betweens.  It's a ridiculous swamp where the billing staff has to deal with all these different companies, each with different policies and provisions.  Medical billing might actually be more complex than medical practice itself.

It's an absolutely terrible system but starting over means crossing the insurance lobby.  Not many politicians are going to do when there is no professional gain.

Likewise, we pay far more for drugs than other countries, which is just idiotic.  Again, doing something about that would require politicians going against the pharmaceutical industry.

The really important reason, though, the one that's actually killing people in the US, is the way our system influences people to put off healthcare.

This is the way one of my professors, a practicing surgeon, explained it:  in some other countries, when Person A feels unwell, they visit the doctor.  The doctor might find a lump, order a biopsy, then perform an excision.  With post op visits and treatment, the total cost will be the equivalent of a few thousand dollars.  In the United States, when Person B feels unwell, they ignore it.  They "can't afford to be sick."  They put it off until they can no longer work.  When they finally do visit the doctor, or even the ER, that lump is no longer just a lump; it's metastasized to other parts of the body.  A simple excision turns into an extended hospital stay, batteries of tests, drug treatments, radiation treatments, surgeries--nevermind that it still might not be enough to save the person's life, suddenly that "few thousand dollars" in the first scenario becomes hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more.  Drug costs alone for a cancer patient are about $10,000 a month.  Why is all that meaningful (besides people dying)?  Because you can almost count on a large portion of that not being covered by insurance.  That means the medical industry eats a good chunk of medical fees, which in turn leads to the cost of healthcare rising to combat that deficit.

When I say our system is fucked, I mean it.  It needs to be scrapped completely.

lets actually address the whole problem here, since it seems like various details are being thrown about. so lets put them together into some logical state.

the government collects taxes from its citizens, which becomes the national budget. the government is then meant to use that money to provide services for the country - fixing roads, social services, education, military, etc. and people have a problem with the way the US government spends the collected money because the vast majority of it, and the percentage is rising, is going towards military and funding wars that we really dont need to be fighting. meanwhile the American educational system is going down the toilet, the cost of healthcare is so expensive that nobody can afford it (and if you think for a second that medical expenses need to be that high, youre wrong, the amount people are charged for medication exceeds the production value by at least 10 fold, but thats a separate issue), and every time people simply ask the government to give a shit about the country for more than two seconds their only response is "we cant afford it". we absolutely CAN afford it. we have the money, it just needs to be spent on anything other than the military.

There are many factors at play with health care especially. The US population is far larger than any country in Europe, meaning there's far more people to care for. Doctors' salaries are also higher than nearly anywhere else on earth, which drives up costs, as do the preponderance of malpractice suits.

The vast majority of Americans have health care, whether through private providers or medicare and medicaid. The issue is how to deal with the 15% or so who don't. Many of these people are young and healthy and find paying for health insurance an unnecessary burden right now. Having the government take over health insurance would require a massive restructuring of the economy, greatly affecting all those who already have plans they like, and at great cost. In general in the US the quality of care provided under government programs like medicaid is already inferior to that provided by private insurers.

And that's before we get into the issues with European-style medical care. The lack of choice, the seeming encouragement of suicide in many places (there's a shocking case in Canada where the provider's response to a man asking to be given better care after being neglected was to offer him assisted suicide), the discounting of parents of toddlers, the long waits, ect.

These may or may not be representative of the European model, but they show that there is no perfect model, and what works in Europe won't work in the US.

Some level of government intervention is going to be necessary, but the best way forward for the US is to increase choice, options, and competition. Let people purchase cheaper insurance from out of state. Allow tiers of plans that would allow the young to afford insurance. There will still be uninsured people, but the number will be reduced, people will pay less in general, and there will be more money to cover those with chronic conditions as those who are healthy will be more likely to pay into the insurance pool. Many people on government programs might even choose to switch to private insurers, both improving the quality of their care and easing the burden on the economy. People will gravitate towards the insurers that offer the best balance of good care and affordable pricing, especially the pricing part, if they are allowed to.

It still won't be perfect, but nothing ever is, and it would a whole lot better than the current situation..

Yeah better results for the majority, but thats misleading, because many here cant afford healthcare. Those that can afford good healthcare get better results HERE than they do in Germany. So healthcare is better here at the highest level than in Germany. I's not a coincidence that billionaires fly in from all around the world for treatments in the US and not Germany.

I don't have any problem with this happening but I often see politicians trying to convince people that this is a key point and it's just not for the majority of the populace.  The overall impact would be pretty small.  Only those who live within easy traveling distance between two zones with radically different costs would see much of a benefit.  

As a downside, it would likely add to the billing and administration nightmare, which is already the worst in the entire civilized world.

I'm not sure where you got your information from but wealthy US citizens going to clinics in other countries is fairly common.  Costa Rica, for example, which was famously endorsed by Rush Limbaugh.  Some of the most prestigious hospitals in the world are in Europe and, surprisingly, southeast Asia.  

Even some US insurance companies are sending patients overseas because they can save a huge amount of money for the same surgery at the same quality.  That number keeps growing every year as the ridiculousness of the US system becomes more obvious.