Yes, I would pay more money for a single payer healthcare system. Typically in other countries people can pay more for additional private coverage or out of pocket procedures but there is a basic standard of care. Pretty much anything is worth trying with our broken system. Even if you ARE insured, taht doesn't guarantee you good nor affordable care in the US!

Yes I would. I doubt that "equal" care is available even in countries with socialized medicine. However, our medical system is so bad that many of us are dying from treatable conditions. I am not going to live a long life because I have a cardiac condition but am inadequately insured. If I make it to my 50's I shall be shocked. I am sitting next to Keysha who needs to see the doctor for a torn meniscus. Oft times she is on crutches and she weeps regularly from the untreatable pain. She cannot see a doctor because she cannot afford to the bill and nobody will see her without proof of ability to pay (that is the "norm"). I have another friend dying of heart disease as she scrapes to find the money to both eat and buy her medicines. I HAD a friend who died suffocating in his own home because he had COPD and could not afford oxygen. Before anyone says that the ER must treat people like us, that is somewhat correct. In the hospitals that take indigents or the underinsured, they STABILIZE you if it is life threatening (Keysha's is not life threatening, for example) and send you off with a referral to a specialist who refuses to take you and with prescriptions that you cannot afford to have filled. I do not think I need to go on.

A simple analogy: - An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class. - That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, as socialism is a great equalizer. - The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade. - After the first test, all the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. - The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. - As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied less. - The second test average was a D, and no one was happy. - When the 3rd test rolled around, the average grade was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame, and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. - All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately always fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try to succeed. - That’s just how it works in the real world..

No. Equal & bad and inadequate care than will probably be just as expensive or more expensive where govt knows too much about your health and life - is the result.

For all who answered yes, are you willing to let the government make your medical decisions for you? For instance what would happen if the government decided that they would not treat anyone with heart disease, if the patient had a history of smoking. The government refuses treatment because the patient chose to get sick when he chose to smoke. How many smokers out there could deal with that?

Yes, I would pay higher taxes to help those who can't afford quality medical care. Perhaps my taxes wouldn't be that much higher if I no longer had to pay for trillion dollar wars and multi-billion dollar corporate bailouts.

We already DO pay higher taxes so that people who can't afford care can get it. We also pay higher costs in hospitals so that they can take care of people the state mandates they see. . There are also charities that take care of sick children, Shriner's etc. . Somehow not everyone gets seen. . The idea that taking even more money would somehow reduce waste while giving everyone good care is just wishful thinking.

No. In fact, I would pay higher taxes NOT to have socialized medical care .... medical care under the socialized system involves waiting in lines. That is TERRIBLE because most serious problems involve immediate needs.

I have no problem with higher taxes for medical care for those that can't afford it. I am sick of seeing innocent people die years before they they had to just because they are not lucky enough to have the money to afford health insurance. Most of them are just blessed enough to have jobs (if they do). Some don't. Raise my taxes as much as they want. We need medical care for every human being. They deserve it. I am tired of seeing patients who need care turned away because they don't have money. Everyone thinks that if you go to an ER you must be treated. No you do not get treated if they think it's not an emergency. Where I work I have had patients come in suicidal and have been turned away and told "go see the free mental health clinic in 6-8 weeks". They will not admit them. That is wrong. I have no idea how many of those patients have died as a result of that. It is wrong that every citizen cannot have health treatment no matter what.

Yes. No one in the greatest country in the world should suffer for lack of medical attention. If we have the means to stop it we should do so. It's hard to be a leader, but maybe we can learn from the mistakes within the socalized med systems that are currently used in other parts of the world. The gov't should a act as a huge union of taxpayers who bargain with medical care providers and drug companies for reasonable prices (published, for the sake of transparency.) I don't imagine that our first go at it will be as successful as I'd like it to be, but it will happen... And I am ok with higher taxes. Some will see it as an intrusion, but I say that it's the patriotic thing to do.