PNHP (Physicians for A National Health program) is a 15000 member organization founded many years ago when it became clear that American health care was being run bythe crooks and liars that run health insurance companies.  Here is their set of FAQ's introducing single payer.

PNHP also has a great list of research articles here.  Learn why administrative costs are 31% of your health care dollar and why half of bankruptcies are due to medical bills.

Here is a simple explanation:  single payer health care takes insurance companies out of their position between the patient and the doctor.  They are unnecessary, inefficient, and do nothing to enhance care.  Their purpose is to make money, not provide medical care.  They make money by doing exactly the opposite of enhancing care--they make money by denying care.  Great cartoon on this simple explanation page.

This is a no-brainer if you have a brain.  Socialized medicine is when the government owns the means of production and the government employs the workers.  Do we have socialized medicine in the US?  Sure.  It's called the Veteran's Administration and it is consistently ranked as the best healthcare provider in the US.  Remember the flap about VA care at Walter Reed Hospital.  That was a deliberate misstatement (read LIE) from the start.  Walter Reed is NOT part of the VA.  It is run by the Army.  However, in the case of the particular unit that was full of rats, bedbugs, etc.--that unit was not even run by the Army.  it was run under contract by none other than our old pal Darth Cheney's former employer, Halliburton.  In other words, privately run health care screwed up a previously OK socialized system.

Single payer is like Medicare, the system that pays for seniors' medical care.  That is single payer:  Uncle Sam collects payroll taxes and uses them to pay private doctors and hospitals.  That was pure single payer until Bush privatized that by subsidizing private insurers to take part of the Medicare population into HMO's (they get 11% more than what is paid for the non-HMO person whose care is directly paid by the government.)  And if you think single payer does not work, just threaten to take away Medicare from a senior citizen.  She will bash you with her purse and stomp you with her sensible shoes.  And then call on AARP to stampede.

By the way, single payer (Medicare) is in great financial shape with a surplus, despite Bush's attempt to raid it with his handouts to private insurers.