Ignore for the moment that the Federal Government does not have Constitutional permission to engage in socialized medicine. Look only at results where it has been tried. Kevin tells us about how it's working out in the U.K.
There are lots of other examples but the first implementation appears to have come from Germany and was a failure as well.
One of the basic problems with socialized medicine is who is spending who's money. As pointed out by Milton and Rose Friedman in Free to Choose there are four different possibilities (from memory):
- One spends ones own money on themselves.
- One spends ones own money on someone else.
- One spends someone else's money on themselves.
- One spends someone else's money on someone else.
On average, the first case is going to result in the best return on any given dollar spent. The person will optimize the result for the available money.
On average, the last case is going to result in the worst return on any given dollar spent. The person has little incentive to limit the amount of money spent and to get a good result for the money spent.
Socialized medicine most closely matches the last case and results in the least efficient spending of money.
Tell all the Democrat candidates for President to shove their illegal plans where the sun doesn't shine then save on their own health care by getting their colonoscopy for removal of the reams of paper done without sedation.