Taking this from another I've of my posts. More appropriate here. I would love a NHS system, but we need to transition to it very slowly, 18% of GDP is not something is place price controls on overnight. It's a generational transition.
Unfortunately much of the drivers of costs in the health Care system are the reasons Republicans list (at least 2 presidents ago). Doctors do make too much money, pharma does charge too much, malpractice does award too much, insurance should go across state lines.
But Democrats do not like going after costs, especially in those groups. See Obamacare's failures.
But healthcare does need to be regulated at the federal level and it should not be linked to employment (remove the damn tax break), insurance needs to be hugely simplified through that regulation and wealth should be redistributed to help the poor.
But sane republicans do not like expanding the federal government, which is required in a health Care marketplace where people can traverse state lines.
Now the insane turd monkeys we have now, all populist gas but stock in neutral (thank God), solution is to lunch poor brown people.
The easiest transition for the country would be the Dutch system. Everyone had to buy a single plan (gold equivalent) from a choice of insurance companies. You can buy whatever supplemental you want after that.