The Scotland Sun reports that the Scottish NHS paid £23 million ($40 million) to patients for subpar care. Is this due to the inherently substandard quality of care in a single-payer system?
The answer is likely no. This figure only amounts to about £4.50 ($7.34) for every person in Scotland however. Drug-related errors in the U.S. cost patients $3.5 billion per year or $11.50 per patient. Thus, it matters not whether a health care system is single payer or not; single-payer and private health care systems both have significant room for improvement.