Europeans do pay much less (though: for roughly the same outcomes --- probably the same outcomes if you control for wild SES variance across the US).
Take Europeans, put them in Kansas. Fund their healthcare as though they were in Europe, and watch their health outcomes take a nosedive because the environment here is non-trivially worse for you health.
Unless I’m wildly misunderstanding these studies, it makes sense that we would need to spend more for the same outcomes because we are starting from a more unhealthy position, so the same results require more resources.
We need to at least be controlling for the 10%+ differences in obesity rates, and the enormous differences in UV index. That’s before even considering weekly exercise minimums that most European get when just walking to a bar.
I think the important bit in all these discussions is that "universal health care" and "single payer" aren't synonyms. Single payer is one way to do universal, and most universal systems don't do it. But this article conflates the two.
You're not wrong at all that the US has some systematic issues that place additional strain on the healthcare system, but it's a "yes and" situation here. Even accounting for those, we spend far, far too much because our system is extractive.
I would be curious as to the costs/benefits there.