Single-payer healthcare is the best, simplest way of providing universal healthcare.

I've noticed a number of debates regarding this topic and they all seem rather vaguely defined. A number of them refer to a presidential candidate's plan. First, it's important to note that no current presidential candidate except, I believe, Kucinich, supports single payer healthcare- Clinton, Edwards, and Obama all have different proposals they claim would accomplish universal healthcare. Single payer healthcare means that the government covers a wide range of medical conditions, procedures, prescription drugs, etc, for everyone. "Everyone" can vary to include legal vs undocumented, citizens vs noncitizens. If my respondent likes we can address this issue as well, which I believe should include all people residing within the US, including undocumented or illegal immigrants. There are a number of reasons that this plan is needed. Right now, a significant portion of our population goes without healthcare. The most recent numbers I've heard have been in the range of 45-47 million people. But, this is not necessarily the most significant problem. The number one cause of bankruptcy in the US is medical- and 2/3 of the people who file for this bankruptcy HAD health insurance. This is a symptom which indicates that the insurance that many, if not most, is written to provide as little coverage as possible while still charging for insurance. People that thought they had coverage often go in with a problem and belatedly discover that their insurance will not cover it- or will have to put in weeks, months, and years of effort to make sure that they get it. The health insurance industry is a for profit industry, which means that they will do their utmost to prevent people from getting coverage. Single-payer has a number of other advantages. 1) Under the current system, doctors seeing their patients do not make the decision- an HMO company does. Under a single-payer system, the doctor decides what is necessary. Doctors and their staff also have to spend an absurd amount of time and money interacting with the HMO to make sure that procedures or whatever are covered- this cuts into the time they have to see money. 2) Administrative costs under the current system are outrageous- generally ranging from 15-20%. This means that 15-20% of what we spend on healthcare (which is twice per capita to any other in the world) goes to offices, phones, and paperwork rather than healthcare. Medicare, on the other hand, which is a comparable system to single-payer, spends merely 2%. The argument that private industry is more efficient in this case is completely fallacious. Additionally, private insurers spend a lot of money advertising, which is again money that we the public spend on healthcare that goes to something unrelated. 3) It increases the pool of risk. Health insurance is about everyone contributing a little bit to protect the few that get hurt. The larger the contributing pool, the lower the overall costs. 4) The government gets to negotiate on behalf of everyone. 300 million people together can get a much better deal than even the bigger companies. This will be especially useful when it comes to negotiating prescription drug costs. The US spends two times per capita on healthcare than any country in the developed world, yet our healthcare system is among the worse, if not the worst. You can see this by looking at infant mortality, life expectancy, or other statistics. I think it's time we start to get what we're paying for.