Well I'm not labeling Democrats socialists, any more than Republicans are fascists. (Overuse of those terms has essentially made them meaningless anyways)

I am not voting for Democrats precisely because of their health care proposals.

Australia may have socialized medicine. However, it is a country with only 20 1/2 million people. That's just under the population of New York state. We have 281 million people, so implementing socialized medicine in the United States would be much more difficult.

It's not just people - but the greater number of age demographics, race demographics, population regions, and all the kinds of medical care anticipated and needed for a federal medical system in the United States to provide.

The second reason against socialized medicine is something that everyone here conveniently ignores about other countries. Our population is aging. Since socialized medical insurance is essentially a ponzi scheme, aging countries like France, Germany, Japan and England today are facing serious problems in finances.

Canada, Australia and the United States have younger populations for now - but if and when our countries gray, it means that more people will need public health care and there will be fewer younger people to pay for it.

Health care in the United States is a problem because it costs so much. If you are going to change the system, change it so the prices come down via market forces (like prices for most other service industries have)

Requiring health insurance only makes everything even more expensive and services scarcer as the government provides it.

Steve