There's a trope out there, a deep implication, running beneath the right-wing discourse provoked by Michael Moore's new film. The trope is simple; that single-payer health care is somehow "socialized medicine" and this socialization abruptly brings our country down the terminal path of the Soviet Union.
But in this accusation, there lies a subtler implication: the socialization of medicine is akin to the Nationalization of it. Demagogues conjure images of Communism, forbidding prophecies of Doctors and Nurses losing their desire to excel at their work (the god mammon having been expelled by the nationalization process).
This is a propagandistic lie.
Even the socialization of medicine would do nothing to change the competitive market of specialists; Doctors and Nurses and Administrators that make up the modern medical complex. It is these very people that determine the quality of care that a patient receives. Insurers (who comprise the only competitive market that would be assumed) compete on the basis of their profits, not the level of care given to their own customers. The professionals, however, have a living stake in the public consideration of their own work. To use the market to improve quality, we need to improve the lot for our medical professionals. Nothing could do that more easily than Government provided stability of health care and investment for all.