A nice short sweet description of the German healthcare system, which is normally left out of the international anecdotal comparisons. It's a great system, but it seems irreplicable. It's entirely funded by hundreds of competing private for-profit healthcare companies. But the fact that everyone involved is German seems to change everything:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91971406
That and perhaps the power of having a long and nationally identifying tradition. Universal healthcare is virtually as old as the German nation- state (125 years), and much older than the current constitution.
Michael