I assume you are referring to a public program. If you look at 2014, almost $29 billion total for Canada was spent. Of that, $12 billion came from governments—federal, provincial, and territorial—and then $17 billion came from private sources. It was $10 billion from private insurance and $6.4 billion out of pocket.
It was the National Forum on Health that raised this idea in 1997. It said that this money was being spent and it could be converted to public money. The question then is how you do that. The way it was done in medicare in the sixties was that the federal government stepped up to the plate and offered 50:50 cost-sharing to the provinces. It was phased in over several years and it did happen quickly, but I just think it's a much bigger gulp factor now than it was back then.