I run into damn few liberals who don't have as their ultimate goal a "Canadian-style" single-payer system. If they say that isn't their goal, they're probably running for office and keeping it quiet.

That there are emergencies that need to be dealt with is inarguable. The idea behind health insurance years ago was that you would pay for routine care and the insurance would pay for the bad stuff. Routine care was, not surprisingly, reasonably-priced. I would have little objection to government assistance to truly needy people for emergencies. But Democrats don't like means testing of benefits. You see, there aren't enough truly poor voters to make that politically attractive.

Nowadays, everyone in America is convinced they are being poorly-used if they have to cough up a ten dollar copayment for a doctor visit, and so on up the line. This is not the fault of government alone. And wow, Medicare now covers being fat. Meanwhile, the health-care industry, also not surprisingly, charges all that the government and insurance companies will bear. Consumers? I don't see any consumers.

A single-payer health care system will no longer be driven by finances, but by politics. What politician is going to tell his constituents that they can't have all the care they think they need? The CAT scan for the broken finger, the cosmetic surgery? No politician ever won an election by telling his voters that they can't have a free lunch. A lot of politicians have won elections by telling voters they can. Like any other government entitlement, it's a positive feedback system, and will inevitably either go asymptotic or be subjected to draconian rationing.

BTW, birth control pills are about thirty bucks a month max, assuming you have no insurance coverage at all. What's the husband doing for a living?