Spike,

Kati made this point originally and reinforced it in a subsequent entry.

Although the term can be used loosely, a socialized medical system typically defines a system where the government directly employs the physicians, owns the hospitals and establishes the cost/payment scheme from the federal budget. This is the system of Britain, Finland and Cuba.

The single payer system just simplifies the payment for medical services since there is only one "insurance company". Physicians can actually earn higher salaries than in this country since they and by proxy hospitals receive 100% reimbursement for services, a number US physicians and hospitals are not even close to. Citizens have universal coverage and therefore universal access to care. It eliminates a great deal of paperwork and to a certain extent minimizes the variation embedded in a two-tiered medical system.

Thanks for your query. Very few people seem to be interested.