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Actually
Government-owned healthcare in Europe is not that universally common. The UK is an exceptional case where the government pays for almost all of the care for everyone out of taxes and also provides almost all of it as well, but in the other systems government plays less of a role.
Although Professor Smyth only mentioned European programmes, health care costs are universally challenging, just look at the number of people in the US who can't afford coverage. When I was in the US last summer there seemed to be alot of concern that even people with coverage often didn't have enough coverage.
Ironically, one of the big barriers to sensible reform in the UK is that Britons look at the inadequacies of the US and freak out about any attempt to get the more market involvement in healthcare. So, in the US when they want to block reform they bring out the extreme example of Britain and in the UK they bring out the extreme example of the US and nothing changes that much, which is very convenient for the powerful interests who benefit from the way things are.
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