Socialized Medicine... not too bad, if you ask me!

I hate, and have hated for many years, President Bush.... I read in an article that Bush vetoed the child health care plan, or rather vetoed raising the funds to $35 Billion, and wanted to only raise it to $5 Billion. This is basically a plan that allows free child care to kids whose parents make too much money to recieve Medicaid, but not enough to purchase any kind of actual insurance. I think the part that pissed me off was when I read "It would be funded by raising the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents to $1 per pack." and the President vetoed it, "saying the Democratic bill was too costly, took the program too far from its original intent of helping the poor, and would entice people now covered in the private sector to switch to government coverage....Bush argued that the congressional plan would be a move toward socialized medicine by expanding the program to higher-income families."

I mean come on, how heartless can you be. It's benefitting children! I currently live in a country, or rather on a continent, where socialized medication/healthcare is the norm, and while it does have some problems, it is a pretty good system. In Italy all citizens have healthcare coverage, when i told a friend that we had to pay a co-pay for labor and delivery, she thought we were crazy and said "people out here would refuse to have children if we had t pay for it." Sometimes there is a wait for services, but if you know that you need a yearly exam for something, then schedule your appt. ahead of time. If it is an emergency they can usually fit you in, or worse come to worse, you could ge it done provately and pay, but you would pay next to nothing. Prescribed medicine is free, and other medicines are rather cheap! In France, any persons under 16 years of age, whether French or not, are automatically covered under their health care system. My dear friend Noemie is French and from what I have heard the French have a very good healthcare system that is free for it's citizens. I believe Canada has free health insurance too (I'm not 100% sure, but I think they do), and most Scandinavian countries have free healthcare too. Look at Sweden, mothers are given 420 days of maternity leave, or rather of days to use anytime between the childs birth and the child's 8th birthday, and the father gets 60 days, or months of "daddy-time" to get acquainted with his new child, and it's all paid...and that's just the tip of the iceberg, Uni. in most of Europe is really cheap and subsidized by the state of free. Where did we go wrong in all of this? How did we get stuck with outrageous healthcare costs and Universities with tuition upwards of $30,000.... if you ask me something is wrong with this picture!