I sorta suspect the study is part of the anti-single payer propaganda. It's not the fault of private medicine. It's our fault health costs so much because we eat like pigs! So pay your insurance premiums or get a job that does, if you can, and enjoy The Best Health Care In The World.
[WS:] Yeah, that crossed my mind too. But now that you mentioned the single payer system, it is not a panacea for cost control either. What is driving the cost up, imho is income disparity i.e. some people being obscenely rich and thus able to pay virtually any price for health services. That creates a powerful incentive for service providers to cater to this population, and charge whatever market can bear at the expense of the rest of us. The same holds, of course for housing, transportation, education, etc.
I think that implementation of a single payer system will do surprisingly little for the medical service cost containment, as long as the obscene income inequality persists in this country. The providers will continue catering to the wealthy and that will (i) create a relative shortage of basic services with lower profit margin, and (ii) force everyone else to supplement public insurance payments for most procedures.
As to the Euros and smoking - I just came back from Germany and indeed noticed people smoking in public places. But that I think has more to do with the fact that unlike here, smoking is permitted in most public places and therefore more visible.
For international comparisons see: http://www.gallupworldpoll.com/content/?ci=28432 http://www.who.int/tobacco/global_data/regional_databases/en/index.html It looks like the US has a relatively low rate, but then smoking declined here quite dramatically for the past 10 or so years. Eastern Euros, otoh, tend to smoke like chimneys.
Wojtek