Single Payer Health Systems

I've been a health care researcher for 25 years and have always been dumfounded at the gross inefficiency of the US Health Care System.
When I mention to right-leaning people - including family members - that the US spends more for a lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality that any other developed country they will counter with 'But I know a Canadian who had to wait for a procedure'.
When I discuss the advantages of a single-payer system (not single provider and nothing like socialized medicine) my observations and research are dismissed out of hand as socialism or communism.
It's a triumph of propaganda by the entrenched health care system and their appeals to fabricated issues like death panels and 'choosing your own doctor': issues not existent in any system I know of.
I understand the propaganda. What I do not understand is the eagerness to accept it and the unwillingness to consider other options.

I can't answer this question. Any help out there?