" . . . without having government bureaucrats deciding whether we are allowed a hip transplant or treatment to slow the progression of a terminal disease."

You're thinking of people in for-profit insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry, who pay their CEOs millions and millions of dollars a year, like AIG, people who were a huge part of the corporate ponzi scheme that crashed and burned in 2008 - and they got bailed out .  They are the people, the uneducated, distant, indifferent people who make more money with every patient who receives less.     

Government funded, single-payer systems in around 37 or so industrialized nations provide better medical care - have FAR BETTER medical and health outcomes than the US - and cost less than the US, because of insurance parasites and pharmaceutical parasites who profit off ordinary Americans.   It is not because of "government."   It is because of capitalism.