Daphne, what you are talking about is a different issue. There has been a lot of studies on the efficient running of Public Vs Private Utilities, Health and Education included.
The point is whether the country can run a Public service efficiently and effectively. In a book review on the subject I heard, the authors found that the factors which caused good efficiency and effectiveness were not related to Private or Public. Meaning that as many Private service utilities were run badly as were Public. The point of running them well is a separate issue - being Public instead of Private is not the casual factor.
If you feel that your Government is not up to running a Public Health service well, then naturally that's the last thing you want. But that is because of the way it is set up - mechanisms put in place - and the quality of the Government. If you don't trust them to do it well, then you are right to be concerned.
There are many countries in which the Public Health system is run well. Personally I think the best systems are where they have both - get basic Health service from Public system, and improved service if you pay extra and can afford it, from the Private sector.
But the big issue across the globe now, is the cost. Both Private and Public exert huge pressure to bring down costs, and not all of that is directed to the Pharmo companies - often it is directed to the doctors, which lowers the service quality for patients.
What Public Health systems can do, is to subsidise (as well as forcing lower costs on doctors and pharmos). That is a good goal, however from what I hear, even countries who are handling that well are now in for trouble, because the costs are going up way beyond any country to subsidise.
There seems little way out, but opting for Private is going to be reduced to smaller and smaller numbers of extremely wealthy people. There is going to have to be some Public system, and unfortunately the service will be minimal. But minimal is better than nothing.
If in SA they are actually wanting to wipe out the Private Health, then that is definitely a worry. The US plan looks quite different to that. It will be very interesting to see how it ends up, because all countries are worried and watching for models which will offer better outcomes.