What is Socialism? And how does this apply to Health Care?

Socialism isn't a true government system. It's a political concept that the government should play an active role in the welfare of its people. A concept that most governments apply on one level or another. The issue is how much control should it have in these systems, and therefore, how much control should it have over its people.
Communism takes socialism to an extreme, and it results in a slow economy and weak populace. Democracy is the best initial system for the populace, but socialism is still applied. Even in modern America, socialism is at the core. We have socialized police departments, fire departments, etc... The government and taxpayer's money take an active role in the welfare of the community. Adding a new system to the mix, as long as it's for the betterment of society, does not make the nation "socialist"... It makes it more responsible for the people, and accountable to the people.

In all high population nations, government systems need to be used in combination with another system. It would be impossible to have a true democracy in a nation with a population of hundreds of millions. Also, to protect the minority within a democracy, you  need some safeguard to keep the majority from voting the minority into slavery, or something. Because America had such a large and isolated population from the beginning, we are a Representative Constitutional Democracy. We utilize socialized programs for the welfare of the people. Adopting one more socialized program would not make us a socialist nation. We already have many programs that are socialized and we're still not socialist. It's almost impossible for a government not to have any socialized programs. Without a socialized program of some sort, people would have no reason to pay taxes.

Socialized regulation on industry is acceptable to maintain a fair environment for businesses. Also, in any industry that should be working for the welfare of the people, such as health care, the government should impose regulations to insure the industry's intentions remain with the people, and not the profits. Any industry that deals with the welfare of the people should be run by the government or regulated by the government. A privately run industry seeks profit, and when you're intentions need to be with the people, profits get in the way. A health care system should be worried about the patients, and at best, it should break even at the end of each fiscal year. It should have little or no motivation to increase its profit margin. We do not tax necessities because of this concept. The government sees a serious ethical issue with applying taxes to products and services the people need to survive. Yet, some politicians see no problem with reducing regulation that imposes the same ethical standards on corporations!... This cannot be allowed.

Some political parties like to talk about "reducing regulations" on corporations. But this is an indirect lie. It is important to understand how the law making process works. You can never truly reduce regulations. You can only add new regulations that say there's no need to enforce the old regulation. It's called the "Amendment Process" and it's at all levels of the legislative branches in the US. "Reducing Regulation" in the health care industry does not allow for better medicine or better care. It frees the executives of these corporations to increase profits and focus on the market environment, not the patients. If they were truly interested in the patients, they wouldn't be millionaires.

It is important to remember that Obama, nor any other president, can write bills for law. Even if they could, they could never make America anything other than a Representative Constitutional Democracy. It would take a bill that would disregard the "inalienable" Bill or Rights, and that's not possible. That's why their called "Inalienable"... Get it?

It is said that the democratic party is the party of bad ideas, and the republican party is the party of no ideas. This is said because the definition of "liberal" in politics means someone who brings up new ideas. Not all new ideas are good ideas, but at least they're trying to fix a broken situation. The definition of "conservative" is someone who attempts to keep things as they are, or revert back to a previous way of doing things. The legislation proposed by the current republican party reflects this. They are either trying to stop new legislation, or they're trying to pass bills that would take America back to the old way of doing things. This would be fine if the system was better before, or if it wasn't broken now. But in health care, and many other situations, the system clearly is broken. Anything would be good at this point, anything but what we were doing before Obama. The republicans like to say they're against "BIG government" which is nothing more than a hypocritical scare tactic. They're the ones who want legislation to restrict your individual freedoms. They want all the liberty for their way of life, and none for those ways that differ from theirs. Gays can't marry, can't serve, can't adopt, etc... Atheists can't adopt, can't run for office, etc... Women can't vote, can't choose to have an abortion, etc... These are the old ways. They didn't work back then, they won't work now. But they suit the republican party's lifestyle. They make laws to revert us back to old ways because they live by old ways, and they assume you do too, or that you should.