It's actually not socialist in Canada. In socialized medical systems, the doctors work directly for the state. In Canada (and many other countries with universal care), doctors run their own private practices, just like they do in the US. The only difference is that every doctor deals with one insurer, instead of 150. And that insurer is the provincial government, which is accountable to the legislature and the voters if the quality of coverage is allowed to slide.
The proper term for this is "single-payer insurance." In talking to Americans about it, the better phrase is "Medicare for all."
But your point still stands. They're doing it with success.
"Managing -- really restricting -- the supply of health care has been the principle method of cost containment for provincial governments [Canadian]across the land, regardless of ideological stripe. The result has been long waiting lists for practically any type of care."
"Canadians wait too long for everything from surgeries like knee replacements (several provinces fail to meet the benchmark wait times) to MRI scans (a majority of provinces aren't even collecting proper data yet). In other words, we're falling short, even after massive increases in spending, even by the governments' own standards and data."
However, their outcome, in longevity, and especially in infant and early childhood mortality, is head and shoulders above ours. Care to explain how this can be if their system is so inefficient?