Of course it shouldn't, but that is why things like Medicaid exist (as sc94597 shares). If someone wants to provide high quality, highly specialized care, they can also choose to do that if they wish.

The problem with american health care isn't the lack of care for everyone, it's cost. Costs are ridiculous here due to malpractice insurance and regulations (as well as the insurance companies themselves). Implementing universal healthcare likely wouldn't help unless those costs can go down. Though if you could get costs to go down, more people could afford (better) insurance. I wish our govt would stop battling over the universal issue and first figure out how to bring costs down. If its with universal coverage, I'm all for it, but as of now none of the proposals address it.

This is quite right. One thing to consider though is that "universal healthcare" is an end result rather than any particular system. All it means is that (almost) all people in a country have access to a "basic level"of health-care, and therefore the definition of "basic" determines whether a system is "universal" or not. Technically, all people have access to health-care, regardless of whether they can pay for it or not, in the United States, as they can't be denied urgent or emergency care by hospitals. This of course is inefficient, but according to a minimalistic definition of "basic healthcare" the United States already has "universal healthcare."

One important thing we shoul all consider is that how other countries achieve "universal healthcare" can vary significantly. For example, in Switzerland the government forced people to buy private insurance like in the ACA. The difference was that if somebody refused to buy insurance, the government would buy it for them and if the person could afford it, the government would charge them the premiums. This is a very different means of achieving "universal healthcare" than, say, nationalizing the health-care industry like they did in the National Healthcare System of the United Kingdom in the early 1950's.  

Everybody wants to sell us (Americans) on the idea of their particular health-care system, when really we should be looking for a system that works for us. Right now, as you noted, the priority should be on reducing the costs for the 10% or so of Americans who don't want to or can't purchase private insurance. One way to do this is to introduce competition across state lines. Another is to allow drug imports from abroad. Another is tort reform so that doctors don't have to pay huge malpractice insurance fees. Another is to lighten licensing requirements of doctors so more people can become doctors. Another is to somehow obtain price visibiity for certain procedures so that they are charged equally regardless of who is paying for it, and who is providing it. So on and so forth. Real reform would require a number of these things. 

You have to realize what your promoting is a minimalist healthcare system when many of these developed countries with subsidized basic healthcare want their citizens to ration the service in comparison to one of the biggest consumers of healthcare service like the United States ... 

Basic healthcare is ideal for general populace but it's extremely sub-par at treating expensive rare medical conditions ... 

Are we supposed to trust that our healthcare system will reliably take care of those who are in terminal illness or in rare conditions as much as possible ? What am I going to do if someone close to me needed a stem cell transplant, organ transplant surgeons, to treat rare forms of cancer, a life saving drug or a treatment that my country has yet approve ? 

I guess that you failed to realize that it was supposed to be a joke referring to your profile, which says that you're from Antarctica.

That's a lie to protect my identity anyways but it doesn't matter anymore since the cat's out of the bag ...

Australia has a national system as it's primary system. Healthcare is provided to all. Free. (Well. Ignoring how it's paid via taxation.)

You are right it is multi-payer. But how the Australian system works is if you are over a certain Tax threshold you are given a choice.
You either contribute extra into the Health Care system via the Medicare levy... Or you get Private insurance.

Which is why I have been an advocate over mixed systems. It's poven to work.

But the point still stands, the USA is still paying more per capita for Health and it's overall results are inferior to other nations. The statistics don't lie.

"A Nations Greatness is measured by how it treats it's weakest, most vulnerable members". - On that basis alone the USA flops.

To be fair Prep was denied on the Australian PBS scheme because of cost issues, but Truvada is re-submitting it's drug again for evaluation.
That doesn't mean you can't buy the drug, it's just not going to be heavily subsidised.

But the question begs, will the USA ever have it subsidised for all of it's population?

Which is why I have been an advocate for mixed public/private systems with a primary emphasis on public healthcare.
The USA is almost the reverse of that.

Have to disagree with here. Gauging things on a per-capita basis is an important metric, it's not the only tool you have either.

The Superior Country. America is just Canada's Pants.

-snip-