What do you think about socialized healthcare?

It works fairly well in my country (Australia) and has existed for decades in spite of attempts by successive conservative governments to dismantle it. Where it falls down for many people is the cost & availability of specialist doctors: people with private health cover or plenty of money can get to see them fairly quickly and can afford to pay, whereas others have to wait for ages to see someone on the public system and sometimes pay a gap between the fee and the government subsidy.

I've had emergency heart surgery after a heart attack and cataract surgery for no payment at all. Ambulances are also free for people on government benefits and most common prescription medicines are also subsidised for low income people.

Low cost dental treatment and prescription glasses are also available for people on benefits.

It's not a perfect system but it's certainly a LOT better than nothing. I don't understand countries who accept a situation were only the wealthy have the right to health care.

You mean a taxpayer-funded service free for all long-term residents at the point of use like NHS in the UK? Amazing if you need an operation for a serious complaint, or if you're on a low-ish income. Bad if you have a mild-to-moderate mental illness deemed 'non-serious' - the waiting lists and pre-waiting-lists go on for months. The prescriptions are partly funded on taxes too, so doctors try not to prescribe unless absolutely necessary. This means that you can suffer for quite a while before you're recognised as being 'sick enough' to need meds. But on the plus side, they're not 'pedalling' these strong substances to you like pushers. NHS doctors don't tend to be 'pill mills' and the philosophy is very much 'prevention is better than cure', so you tend to be told to get plenty of sleep, eat your greens, keep seeking social and spiritual fulfilment, and are recommended an exercise programme. Dentistry is also only partly covered, and I'm not sure about optical. The NHS covers so much that pretty much nobody needs insurance, so you never need to worry about insurance not covering something, or about paying for it. When you get to the doctor's surgery, there is no talk of money whatsoever except the contribution you pay if you're prescribed a medicine - and even then, many people qualify for free prescriptions. It's one of those places like the public library where - except for things like the coffee machine and the photocopier - it's just not a place where money usually comes into the equation. If a stranger has an accident in the street you can safely call an ambulance - the very idea that in a different country someone might have been hit with a crippling fee, seems like a tragedy and a scourge on humanity.

But there is some moralistic stuffiness about not 'wasting' taxpayers' money and an attitude of disdain towards people who are seen to be 'making a fuss about nothing' (i.e. trying to make out that their complsint is more serious than it is) and those who have given themselves 'self-inflicted' illnesses - and sometimes it's reasonable and sometimes it's just high-and-mighty moralistic pharisaism. At the worst extremes though, some patients see the doctor for stuff they could have just got pharmacist's advice for, and some have a sense of moral guilt about seeing the doctor at all and suffer in silence. I myself have called an ambulance thinking I was having a heart attack, when it was only a panic attack. I couldn't apologise enough. I felt like a criminal for wasting the NHS's precious funds.