I agree with you about the (original and most important) meaning of "socialism", and I agree with the majority of the declarative sentences in your comment. Ho

I agree with you about the (original and most important) meaning of "socialism", and I agree with the majority of the declarative sentences in your comment. However, that's not what the "socialized" in "socialized healthcare" means. Nobody uses it that way, that's not what it means. "Socialized healthcare" means that the cost burden of providing (some aspects of) healthcare is borne by the society. "Socialized healthcare" is fundamentally about wealth redistribution. That's how people use that phrase; that's what that phrase means when people say it. I also am highly skeptical that the U.S. system of healthcare is "one of the most socialist systems" in the first world. More socialist than healthcare in Uganda, sure, perhaps. The means of production of healthcare are primarily owned and operated by private companies. Yes, they are regulated, but that's very nearly orthogonal to capitalism or socialism. And yes, there are socialist aspects to the American system, but my understanding is that they tend to be corner cases (admittedly large corner cases). I think you would be hard-pressed to find a first-world system of healthcare that has as much private ownership of the means of production of healthcare. As for the fix for the established fact that Americans pay around twice as much for slightly-inferior care (relative to other first-world countries).... Your claim that it's over-regulation is wildly citation-needed, although you might be right, and I think it's clear that there's room for SOME savings in things like nurse-practitioners. Nonetheless, the first and most dramatic thing that everyone notices when they compare the U.S. system to the systems that work better (e.g. every other member of the G8) is that the U.S. system is full of adversarial friction, where many private corporations each strive to take a piece of the pie. Good for private profits, bad for everyone else. Not a value judgement, just a difference from other first-world systems.