Brad...I'm here to tell you from first hand knowledge...Medicaid is the biggest scam I've ever seen. Over 3 years they have paid out some where around $70 or $80,000 on my behalf for this...and I use the term loosely...healthcare...it's more like "couldn't healthcare less." And I am no closer now than I was 3 years ago in finding out what my problem is...and it just keeps getting worse. And I am more pissed about all that money spent for nothing than I am about them not finding out what's wrong. Medicaid is just another scam.
Sadly, this is what it will be like for everyone sooner than anyone realizes (unless you get your ass elected to Congress or manage to remain at least somewhat wealthy). The bureacratic inertia & obfuscation that develops in these 'systems' does as much as anything, if not more, to frustrate actual delivery of care that anyone would care to call 'good'. Some people seem to think making everyone suffer equally is utopia. There's no such thing as an adequate 'safety net' to them. The very notion of a 'safety net' is anathema, because it implies that some people don't need one, which can't possibly be 'fair'.
I won't get into an argument here about it, but the assertion that people die 'directly attributable' to the lack of insurance is a myth - a 'correlation' proselytized as a cause-effect relationship by a group with an ideological agenda, bought into by those sharing that agenda. And it's a bit disingenuous even if true - people will continue to die, even with Obamacare, and we'll be reading soon enough how many thousands of those deaths occurred because we don't tax ourselves enough, or spend enough, or spend it in the right way or at the right time, or that they wouldn't be dying if we had more 'oversight' by some or other understaffed bureau, or if we weren't wasting so much on the elderly's last years of life. You can bet the farm on it. These people believe you can't have too much government.
We've seen a microcosm of the future with the Medicaid equivalent here in Arizona - every year the paper runs a series of horror stories about the inadequacy of some aspect of Medicaid services, especially mental health care. There follows, sure as night follows day, the obligatory government investigation & re-awarding of contracts & we start the cycle all over again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I've also practiced in both the VA and military systems where everyone 'has insurance' - unless you're a disabled combat vet needing state of the art prosthetics & rehab, you don't want anything to do with either.
So to those who so ardently wish for universal single-payor health care I suggest caution - you may get what you wish for and find it wanting, at which point your only alternative will be to get your ass rich. Which, thanks to the 'help' of our isolated & insulated politicians, you won't be able to do so easily.