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Public healthcare exists in the USA it is called Medicare and Medicaid.
Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates for all medical services are maybe 35% of the top published rate, private payer insurance maybe 50% of the top published rate.
Public healthcare as it exists in the USA today is highly subsidized by private insurance reimbursement rates.
If there was a Medicare type healthcare scheme for all, taxes would have to go up to pay for it -- but the Insurance companies, as primary underwriters of healthcare, would be out of business. Maybe, there might be "Americare1", Medicare for the retired and Medicaid for the public assistance client only again. Americare1 would have to be at the expense of a new 10% to 12% payroll or SE tax increase.
No matter what happens: healthcare is not going to cost much less in real terms. The government is in a bully pulpit negotiation position when they have a monopoly, as they do with with Medicare and Medicaid now. The reimbursement rate is lower but the services are downgraded also.
There will be a place for supplemental healthcare umbrella insurance for those that can afford the premiums. My mother is 91 and has Blue Cross as part of widow's pensioner survivors benefits. She gets first class treatment and not the Medicare hurry up and wait treatment. My stepfather was an auditor for the local county government. I would have to pay my own ticket. Still, it is excess cost insurance, coordinated benefits in insurance lingo so it's not like you had no Medicare base payment. You pay into Medicare all of you working years -- so it is not free.
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