The oft-quoted statistic is that Medicare has ~2% administrative costs, compared to %15-30 for private insurance companies. Of course, the rebuttal is that that doesn't include a lot of hidden costs of Medicare, but even with those costs included, the analysis suggests that Medicare costs are, at worst, no worse than private insurance companies. For a program that doesn't pick and choose who they're going to cover, I'd say that's pretty reasonable. If the private insurance companies are showing as much (or more) overhead and waste as a government organization, and not covering everyone, then let's get rid of 'em all, and just have the government do it -- at least everyone would be covered, then.