The Health Care debate in the US

Many Italians don't know how big the debate is in the US regarding their HC system. In fact, more and more people would like a more "socialist" or universal one, as Canada or Europe have, whereas in Italy, we debate whether we should go for a more private one, like in the US . I find this article on New Politics quite interesting. I will give an excerpt here, where some common points, with references in the original article, against universal care are discussed.

---Universal coverage costs too much---.
No, it doesn't. Every other industrialized nation offers its people universal coverage, and at a cost much lower than we now spend in the United States, which covers only part of its population. In 2005, we spent 15.3 percent of our Gross Domestic Product on health care compared to France's 11.1 percent, Germany's 10.7 percent, and Canada's 9.8 percent.1 Yet, in 2005 we had 45 million uninsured (it's two million more at this writing!) while other industrialized countries covered everyone's health care.
---Your taxes will go up. ---
Perhaps, but you are still likely to come out ahead when you consider the overall expenses. Single payer will cost most people the same or less than the premiums and medical bills they are paying today, and will be secure regardless of employment or income. Both the Congressional Budget Office and the General Accounting Office have testified that the United States could insure everyone for the amount of money we're spending.
---Americans get world-class care ---
don't mess around with that. The fact is that the average American doesn't get world-class care. Sure, if you are wealthy and have the best private insurance, your chances of getting excellent care are high. But on almost all measures of health care and mortality, we lag behind Canada and Europe.
---Other countries have much longer waiting times than we do. ---
In actuality in other industrialized countries there are no waiting lists for emergency surgery or urgently needed procedures. It's true that the United States has shorter waits for elective surgery than Canada and England. But recent studies show that some waiting times in the U.S. are longer than in other countries. For example, in a study of seven developed countries, the Commonwealth Fund looked at how many sick adults had to wait six days or more for an appointment. By this measure, only Canada's record was worse than ours. Within our market-driven system, an appointment for cosmetic surgery may be scheduled sooner than an appointment for possible skin cancer. A recent study reported an average wait of 73 days for patients with possible skin cancer in Boston.
---People get care even if they're uninsured---
there is no problem. Don't tell that to the American Cancer Society (ACS), which in September 2007 worked with its sister advocacy organization, the ACS Cancer Action Network, to launch a major initiative to make the access to health care a state and national priority. Research shows that uninsured patients were much more likely to have their cancers diagnosed at an advanced stage, when they are less curable, than were patients with insurance. John Seffrin, the Society's chief executive, has stated that unless the health care system is fixed "lack of access will be a bigger cancer killer than tobacco." And of course the problem isn't limited to cancer: the Institute of Medicine estimates there are 18,000 deaths per year due to lack of insurance. Unnecessary suffering and disease affect millions more who have no insurance or are under-insured.
---Single payer is socialized medicine.---
But single payer is not socialized medicine, because for the most part government will not own the hospitals and physicians will not be on salary to government. It simply changes the financing of health care; the health care delivery system remains the same. It will operate like the Medicare program for the elderly today, in which patients are seen by private doctors in (mostly) private hospitals; this clearly isn't socialized medicine. Single payer is actually "social insurance" rather than "private insurance."

It does strike me that the author had to argue against the "socialized" medicine. Why does the left feel the need to justify the word ?