Us Aussies got it right about 25 years ago, and from what I have heard from here (feel free to correct me) I believe Barrak Obama is right (or his intentions are right).

Australia nationalized its health care way back in the early '70's in a system called "Medicare". basically the Govt payed for (or at least heavily subsidized) most health care costs for all Australians by allocating money to the states to run the system (amortized into the general grant). This meant that even the most marginalized people had access to medical services, basically for free.

This system, although very expensive to run, worked VERY well. Most of the right wing (Liberal Government - Malcolm Frazer/John Howard) and some of the left wing governments (financially constrained '87 crash, and early 90's) had to trim the costs in the intervening years, but it still remains substantially intact.

We still have a heavily subsidized Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) which has a cap on the price on individual medicine costs, and a caps on the amounts that a person can spend on medications per year. It regularly runs into the $billions of dollars to run, but there is no way ANY government would have the balls to cut it significantly.

Having said that I can honestly say it is not perfect (from someone that works in the system - Registered Nurse). We do have funding issues and ridiculous management incompetence at a state level (controlling the state hospitals). That may well change soon if the Federal Govt takes over the state run health systems due to that incompetence.

My 2c worth from across the puddle....