I am a 45 year old US citizen from Chicago who lives and works in Spain.  We have a universal healthcare system here.  My experience, while not perfect, has been very good.  I have been hospitalized twice in the 15 years that I have lived here, once for a heart condition that included an operation, and once for an allergy related lung condition.  Both times I did not have to pay a thing, nor did I have to go through a billing process.  It was an amazing contrast for me after having had to deal with the medical system in the US through the illness and death of my parents.  During their illnesses, not only did I have to deal with the personal / emotional aspects, but I had to fight with their insurer over their coverage.  In the end I had to hire a person specialized in fighting with insurers.   There are two things missing here, one is the personal attention, and the second is the appearance of the hospitals.  Both of these problems can be resolved through the parallel private health system, which has much lower rates (50€ a month for a family of four).  People use their private systems for their general healthcare, and complement it with the public system for specific grave problems, or very minor ones that only need a prescription.  In the end, the I have found that the quality is as good as in the states or better.  While the hospitals in the states have better equipment, nicer beds, bigger rooms and I knew my doctor personally, here it is easier to get an appointment (same day) and easier to treat a medical condition before it becomes a costly, complicated problem that needs a lot of technology. 

After my experiances here and in the US, I strongly believe that the US needs to have a universal healthcare system.  The cost of the system in the US is far to high economically, emotionally and in unpreventee / treated illnesses to justify the advantages of having the latest technology and the highest saleries.