Unfortunately,  the writer misses a couple of critical issues.  Most of those other "civilized" countries don't have our extremely adversarial legal system, for starters.  A significant % of your healthcare premium is _lawsuit_  insurance, not medical - every insurance company, hospital chain, and pharmaceutical manufacturer out there has to spend $10s of millions on legal fees every year, chasing off the scumsuckers (even if the defendants rarely lose a suit) .   

That cost has to be passed along to the end users (we the patients), of course.  :-/   I don't see this situation changing just because a government-backed single-payer comes in.  (Indeed, it could get worse.  Lawsuits would  be filed for $100s of millions instead of mere millions - the Government has infinitely-deep pockets, right?)

Then there is the question of other societal priorities.  The USA as the de facto global policeman spends a helluva lot on the military that other countries don't have to.