Single-payer systems are not without problems either. Unless we're rich enough, as a society, to pay for perfect healthcare for everyone then there will be some people who get less than perfect care.

In an individual-pays system, those with expensive conditions or those who are poorer lose out. In a government-pays system those without political leverage lose out - often still those who are poorer.

The British NHS, for example, has been the target of much ire due to different (and arbitrary-seeming) spending priorities in different parts of the country, often called the "postcode lottery".