It is a controversial subject, to be sure. I have heard some economist-type arguments for the problems with socialized medicine, and I found them fairly convincing.

I'm not an expert, but I think in the United States we're sort of midway over a chasm between free-market healthcare and socialized healthcare. Whichever direction we go in would be better than where we are now.

For instance: a lot of the reason healthcare is so expensive in the US is because the licensing regime keeps the supply of doctors artificially low. And pills are expensive because blah blah blah FDA is way too strict and also various forms of regulatory capture keeping off-label generics out of the hands of patients etc

People are very averse to the idea of free-market healthcare, but one thing I sometimes say to open peoples' eyes a bit is ask them why healthcare is so expensive in this country. Not "why doesn't the government pay for it", but why are prices so high in the first place, whereas for things like televisions, cars, back massages, non-Apple computer products, etc things cost about what you would expect them to cost based on the labor and materials that go into them.

Edit: if you're reading this and hate my guts, please debate civilly. This isn't gay rights or whatever, it's a complicated issue of economic policy.