The method that socialized medicine uses to hold down costs is to deny service. Which would you rather have service or bills. You don't get both. Socialized medicine is basicly a triage, it takes so long to see a specialist that it is often too late for expensive treatments. Vermont has socialized medicine and my sister-in-law has been waiting for nine months for back surgery. The pain is so bad that her husband has taken her to the emergency room several times and all they keep telling her is to take her morphine until they can get her in. The woman does day care in her home.
There will always be horror stories in any system. The Europeans, for example, gasp at the typical story of the American with a bullet wound (a US specialty) being turned away at the hospital because he or she has no insurance.
The post about Japan goes to show that successful system of socialized medicine appears to be feasible. Whether or not it would work in the US is another question, but its soundness as a system looks pretty good. Europe also has health care systems that serve its citizens reasonably well.
Of course they can all be improved upon, but I think the question is how to solve the specific health care problems that each country has; rather than disparaging one system or the other. We can learn a lot from other countries: by their mistakes, but also by their successes.
Hey- whoa! It's way past my bedtime. Nighty night everyone.
Thanks for taking me in and keeping things so polite. I hope to chat again soon.