FWIW, some views from Norway, which has universal healthcare.
3: Don't need health insurance so I'd say that's better.
4: We can chose our own primary doctor from the pool of available GPs. Available just means that some GPs have too many patients on their list already and don't have any slots available. You can switch primary GP once a month (IIRC). I switched a few times until I found one which I liked. Repeated the process when I moved.
5: I can see my GP whenever I feel like it, just need to set up an appointment. If you mean to see a specialist then yeah, I'd need my GP to refer me. Sometimes this can feel a bit unnecessary but mostly it's not a big issue IMHO.
6: If my GP doesn't have time for me, I'd just switch and find one who does.
Its not private/public that makes healthcare expensive in the US. Medicare is also public and fairly unlimited and also way more expensive than Norway health.
There's a big group of other issues at play. And universal healthcare in the US would be so massive that you can't compare it to a small country.
> 3: Don't need health insurance so I'd say that's better.
You do have health insurance, it's just provided by the government with premiums paid through taxes. When people express the concern that their insurance would get worse, they mean that the insurance provided by the government would be worse than what they currently have. There are a number of different things that people think make plans worse or better, which is a major contributor to the difficulty in having a clear discussion about this.
I mean, you do have to worry about that. It's just that you're happy with what it covers, so you don't worry about it. Despite all the well known awful problems we have, most people in the US actual feel the same about our plans as you do about yours. I don't have to worry about what my insurance covers because it is a good plan, and if it becomes worse, I can look for a better one. This is true for most people in the US - mostly those of us fortunate enough to have good employer sponsored plans - it just isn't true for enough of us in a lot of peoples' opinion (which I share).
One thing I'm way more afraid of with a single payer system (but not necessarily all universal coverage systems) is that if the coverage became worse, I would have no recourse; it would be a monopoly, I wouldn't be able to look for a better competitor. Even worse, it would be a monopoly run by a political bureaucracy, so coverage decisions could become political. For example, coverage for birth control is a very political topic here. I'm certain that the first incarnation of a single payer system would cover that, because it would be set up by the politicians who favor it, but once the system is enshrined, whoever is in power would be able to change it however they think best. Coverage policy could easily become a political football.
3: Don't need health insurance so I'd say that's better.
4: We can chose our own primary doctor from the pool of available GPs. Available just means that some GPs have too many patients on their list already and don't have any slots available. You can switch primary GP once a month (IIRC). I switched a few times until I found one which I liked. Repeated the process when I moved.
5: I can see my GP whenever I feel like it, just need to set up an appointment. If you mean to see a specialist then yeah, I'd need my GP to refer me. Sometimes this can feel a bit unnecessary but mostly it's not a big issue IMHO.
6: If my GP doesn't have time for me, I'd just switch and find one who does.