Venezuelan small business owner Jose Monagas has seen his country go from being one of the richest in Latin America to the poorest and he has a clear message for Americans: Socialism literally kills people.

As Vermont democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders is proposing a socialist overhaul of America's health care system through his Medicare For All scheme, Monagas warns how socialized medicine has brought nothing but misery and despair to the once-prosperous nation.

"For example, if you get into an accident and the ambulance takes you to the hospital, you will just die outside the hospital," Monagas told Fox News. "People die going from one hospital to another to see which one can take you."

He added, "They are sick and they are dying. They are waiting outside of the hospital for their medicine and their treatment and that happens every day."

'So many people don't have water to drink'

Mongas noted that the crisis in Venezuela extends beyond the health care system and has now affected every aspect of life, including even depriving citizens of basic necessities.

"Right now, so many people in Venezuela are going to work without taking a shower. So many people don't have water to drink. They have been robbed and they don't know what to say. They don't have anyone to go to," he said.

Access to utilities like electricity has also been constrained under the country's socialist government, which Monagas, who has a small software development firm, has said makes it impossible to conduct business in the country.

"One of the biggest problems for us is paranoia with electricity because we have a software development service team and you cannot do software development without electricity and internet," he said. "Every day you're risking that electricity will go out and you'll have three days without electricity. It has happened before."

A collapsing socialist economy

The main driver of Venezuela's misery is the country's economy, which has collapsed under the weight of years of socialist policies by the left-wing regimes of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro.

"The country has no conditions for producers to produce food, for companies to stay there," Monagas told Fox. "The economic situation is very bad."