Every other major country in the world already has "socialized medicine"--universal healthcare in some form or another.
See all the Blue and Green? Yeah.
And it's cheaper to boot:
We already pay about $1500 to the government per year, which in turn provides health care for the young, the old, and the needy. Then we pay on average about another 3,300 for our health insurance, if we have it.
In England, France and Germany, everyone pays about $1500 a year...and everybody in their country has complete health care.
Insurance companies have things like premiums, approvals, co-pay, and other things to prevent you from getting health care so they can make money. Think about it. The sicker you get, the more money they lose. They will do anything to get out of paying for your treatment--and you're paying them to do it.
Most insurance companies have a certain limit to what they will pay regardless of your need. So if you suddenly need a heart transplant, even if you have great insurance you could be out of luck, because the insurance company will only pay that first hundred grand or what have you. After that, you need to cough up hundreds of thousands of dollars on your own. Or go bankrupt. Just like an old car, you'll be declared too costly to fix and thrown into the garbage heap to die.
The United States has the most costly healthcare system in the world. But we aren't getting what we're paying for--out of all the civilized countries in the world, we rate among the lowest when it comes to quality health care. We rank low or last when it comes to efficiency, healthy lives, equity and cost, according to the Commonwealth Fund. We have a much higher death rate from treatable conditions--1800 per year--which is 50% more than Australia.
Insurance companies and the current half-hearted government system of paying for health care are both costing us all more money and providing us with a fraction of what we pay for, if that.
Consumer Reports did a survey and found that at least one in four people with health insurance are not completely covered.
They also cite record profits for the insurance companies. this is simply because they are in the business of making money--not giving people health care. The less health care the companies give, the more money they make. They do not make money from providing actual health care; they make money from selling the policies themselves. Our health care system is not centered around the demand and need for health care, nor the supply of the demand for health care from those who provide it. The system is centered around the insurance companies' need to sell policies, but provide as little coverage as possible.
Now, Universal health care is not the same as single payer health care. Many different countries have different kinds of systems of universal health care, all of which have their own individual ups and downs. The US is known to be innovative, and I believe that we could come up with a system of universal health care which can subvert most of the problems other countries may have by learning from their mistakes and their examples.
John Donne said "No man is an island." A society is all in the same ship--we sink or swim together fighting disease just as much as we do fighting an army. A lot of people think "someone else's health isn't my problem." Well, guess what--yes it IS your problem if they're living next door to you! If you don't believe me I can point to any number of zombie flicks that show how quickly and easily a disease can destroy an entire society. You can't fight epidemics by only treating those who have enough money to pay for it.
In regard to this bill, I was very disappointed that it does not give us a public option. I'm not sure if they kept it, but most of us should have our insurance subsidized by the government (in other words it'll be free for those of us who can't afford to buy insurance). I can live with that for now.
On a side note, government healthcare is better than the, uh, jackshit I've got right now. 
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