To begin with - Universal Healthcare comes in many forms.
It is not necessarily Nationalized Healthcare or Socialized medicine.
The Single payer proposals most popular in the U.S. leave the healthcare infrastructure intact. Principle savings are realized from the elimination of insurance company overhead, additional paperwork, better control over fraud, and being able to track the quality of provider care. None of these things will affect your relationship with your current healthcare provider (unless of course, he's doing unnecessary surgeries or a quack).
True socialism is defined as ownership of the means of production by the state. In Colorado the University hospital system is expanding rapidly and even threatening the existence of the local hospital that has served my community for years. This is a real matter of concern because if this trend continues we may be depending on the government for our healthcare and private physicians may be forced to quit practice or join the system.
Additional savings will come from being able to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies and hospitals for fair pricing.
Families will be able to afford to take their children to the doctor when they get sick, not wait until they are seriously ill.
With an aging population, I believe it is the only sustainable option for the U.S. healthcare system.
This is not a discussion that can be brushed aside with a few partisan memes or anecdotes of failures in other countries. It deserves serious, open minded discussion and that is what I would like to see on this board.
In Peace, In War
