This article covers the issues rather well I think.

A few years ago, the State of Massachusetts passed legislation that facilitated almost universal health insurance coverage for its citizens. Massachusetts also now enjoys health outcomes comparable to those of other industrial countries and generally superior to the rest of the United States. Despite these achievements, the level of health spending, as well as the rate of health care inflation, remain so stubbornly high (at about the national average) that many citizens of the Bay State regard the experiment as a failure.

Health care reform is not simply a technical problem, but also a moral and political one.

It can be done, but like all insurance schemes there will be winners and losers and the losers will be those who pay but don’t claim on it. Even so, they will have gained from it because their premiums mitigated a significant risk and they did enjoy that protection.

The main thing here is to keep it from becoming a profitable vehicle for any service providers. If business can be kept out of it it might have a chance.