The data has been shown, repeatedly, that western European countries offer better health care than the US, at lower cost. We could have a single payer system, providing care for everyone, and getting the providers paid promptly, and *reduce* what we spend vs the current system.

Not unless we sharply and dramatically cut the amount that we pay providers for services. The U.S. doesn't just pay more than other countries in the private system. We pay more per capita to cover our seniors, and they're entirely within the public system:

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov: Comparison of Health Care Spending by Age in 8 High-Income Countries

You can't pay less for health care without paying less for health care. That means paying all the people who provide health care less. There's not enough money that goes out of the system to health insurance companies to make a dent in health care spending. Heck, not even a third of our health care spending is even in the private insurance system anymore.

You can't achieve European countries' spending levels by getting government control of health insurance; you need to have the same level of government control over pricing of health care services.

And that's why you don't have single-payer systems in the U.S. Maybe, what, around 10% of voters in any given Congressional district work in the health care industry? In any given Congressional district, the biggest hospital might not be the largest single employer - but it's probably in the top ten or fifteen? Our health care spending is currently around 17% of GDP; do you think anyone wants to face the economic displacement that would result if you tried to cut that in half over, say, a ten year period? Shaving almost a full point off of GDP growth each year for a decade?