Good for them. Now tell me detailed steps to get the same thing here. I had a lawyer once who handled a case pro bono. It was a small matter and we won. Now how do I get you and all lawyers to do the same? If I had Trump's fortune I could get great lawyers but representation could cost a hell of a lot more depending on the situation, potentially over a million. Ask Manafort. So get me that for 50 Euros. Should be easy, right?
Neither my nor your anecdotes say anything as to what is possible and how to get it done.
Don't complain about anecdotes or what it's like elsewhere. Don't go "socialized medicine", "Portugal", "Medicare for all", give specific solutions as I have and some others.
It's important to understand what a given anecdote proves and doesn't prove. My anecdote proves little to nothing about the quality of care in Portugal because it is one case and for all I know, they might have gotten the best spinal surgeons in Lisbon either because of luck or maybe because they were tourists.
What it does prove is that ordinary citizens get their healthcare cheap there, after paying taxes for it. 50 Euros for a complicated surgery and a 2 week hospital stay. Would have easily been 200K here.
What do you want to know? How to pay for it? People like AOC have unfortunately not done a great job explaining that.
Most people get their health insurance through their employers currently. These employers pay high amounts for private insurance. Sometimes the employee has to pay for part of it. In a single payer system, that expense goes away. So you can tax those employers enough to pay for Medicare for each of their employees. Since Medicare is cheaper, they'd actually save money. In fact, big companies would get a substantial windfall out of it.
You'd also have to tax employers who don't currently buy insurance for their employees, however. But you can make exceptions for small businesses or business like fast food where they have lots of low wage employees. They may pay no tax or a lower tax. You can make up the shortfall by taxing the wealthy.
The tradeoff is that since Medicare has lower reimbursement rates, which is why it's cheaper, doctors will make less money. So will drug companies and medical device manufacturers.
It isn't rocket science, not in its broad terms anyway. It works in dozens of other countries quite well. I see zero reason, other than political opposition from the right, why we can't do it here.