Originally posted by Aristotle
Well, in socialized systems people tend to be LESS likely to seek out preventative health care. Why? Likely because they know if they get sick the government is going to pay for it anyway. So why bother?
My quick google searching bore out similar results for Australia too however, your explanation for this is strange and it seems unlikely. The prognoses for treatment of these cancers is way worse the later it's caught, and most people know that. I haven't been able to find any studies that examine why this disparity is occurring - though I think studies are underway.

What I did find though, was this study:
The role of health insurance on Pap smear and mammography utilization by immigrants living in the United States
This is what it concludes:
Among recent immigrants, 73% and 78% (SE 4%) reported a Pap smear or mammogram, respectively, in the previous 2 years versus 89% and 89% of U.S.-born women (P < 0.05 for both comparisons). Among those with insurance or a USC, differences in screening between recent immigrants and U.S.-born women were four percentage points or less and not statistically significant. However, uninsured recent immigrants were less likely than uninsured U.S.-born women to have Pap smears [60% (SE 7%) versus 71%, P < 0.05]. Adjusting for differences in sociodemographics, health attitudes or beliefs, patient or provider communication, and the medical care environment, insurance remained the strongest predictor of screening.
That is, people who are uninsured are less likely to participate in preventative health screening.
Originally posted by Dalaena
Abuses of the health system would be going to 3 different pediatrician for your child until you finally find one that will prescribe ritilin. Abuses would be calling for an ambulance rather than a cab, a neighbor, a family member, or a friend to get to the hospital to get to the ER. Abuses would be something like bringing your newborn into the pediatrician every day for the first 2 weeks of his/her life because you don't have to pay for your healthcare costs.
Dal, I tried to find stats or evidence for this. The only numbers I could come up with was something like this:http://www.medicareaustralia.gov.au/...are-system.jsp

Mr Bridge said that last financial year Medicare Australia’s overall compliance activity resulted in repayments of $4.65 million in incorrect benefits from 5,288 people, of whom 2,802 were doctors.
And elsewhere there was a passing reference to a 1% or 130 million dollars lost to fraud or abuse in the Australian system. These numbers seem too low to me. Maybe I'm doing the wrong searches. In any case, I can't find anything that discusses the concrete details of the concerns you have about a universal health care system.

WRT ambulances. They're private in Australia, they cost me something like $120 a year for my whole family. If I abuse the system it's not going to cost me anymore than it already does, my charges wont go up so I don't see how there's any argument to be made here about systemic abuse on the public purse when there is just as likely to be systemic abuse of the private.