Wow, check out this comment on existing U.S. single-payer system

[bvar22]

25. You missed the point....again.

LBJ be PRAISED
for establishing a National, Non-Profit, Publicly Owned, Government Administered Health Care System that was designed to be expanded to include ALL Americans, Cradle to Grave,
with immediate emergency assistance to those who needed it the most (Medicaid).

I don't think he would have approved of the ACA.
That would have been an insult to the intrinsic Democratic Party egalitarianism as outlined in the his Great Society.

"Johnson was the catalyst, the cajoler in chief. History records him as the nation's greatest legislative politician. In a great piece on the Daily Beast website, LBJ aide Tom Johnson, writes about how his old boss would have gotten a health care reform bill through the current congress. It's worth reading to understand the full impact of the "Johnson treatment" and how effective LBJ could be in winning votes for his legislation."

http://thejohnsonpost.blogspot.com/2009/08/johnson-treatment.html

Now THERE was a "DEMOCRAT".
I remember.