Socialized Medicine?

Is that what Improved Medicare for All is?

The typical / standard answer among the single-payer movement is “no”

Single-payer health care, which is the best solution for establishing Improved Medicare for All, means that physicians get paid from one (single) public insurance agency instead of hundreds of private insurers plus multiple government programs.

However, physicians keep their private practices. That is, single-payer health care is unlike the socialized National Health Service in England or the Veterans Administration in the United States, where physicians are paid a salary. That is, many people consider a “pure” socialized medical system to mean that the government hires doctors and runs hospitals.

Conclusion: Improved Medicare for All is not “socialized medicine.”

Additional Information: different perspectives and information about where the term “socialized medicine” originated

Socialized systems: positive aspect of our society

A majority of Americans like tax-supported, public, socialized systems and want to support them. Examples are are city/county/township public fire departments and police departments. We hope we never have to use their services, but we support socialized systems with taxes.

Local Example. We like the fire department’s efficiency and effectiveness in rushing to do their best to save a burning house without having them stop and ask 1) are we up-to-date in paying premiums to the “fire department insurance company” and 2) what is covered, based on which fire department policy we have.

National Examples. We all support the Veterans Administration’s (VA) socialized medicine. The VA is a premier model of efficiency, cost control and quality health care (overall). A majority of Americans 65 years and older think positively about Medicare, which is a socialized system, except for the privatized (NOT socialized) parts of Medicare.

These socialized institutions are publicly funded. People get to use them based on need - not on ability to pay.

Many of the institutions we rely on and could not function without are public (i.e., socialized) institutions: fire departments, police, sewage,water treatment, highway/road construction-maintenance, public schools including universities……

Fear About “Socialized” and then “Socialized Medicine”

History Associated with Communism. In this country during the “red scare” socialism became equated with totalitarian control of citizens a la “1984 - Big Brother”. Fear was instilled in the minds of many Americans regarding socialism.

Media Campaign. “The term ‘socialized medicine’ was popularized by a public relations firm working for the American Medical Association in 1947 to disparage President Truman’s proposal for a national health care system. It was a label, at the dawn of the cold war, meant to suggest that anybody advocating universal access to health care must be a communist. And the phrase has retained its political power for six decades.”
— “The Healing of America” by T.R. Reid

Even More Information!

Details. Socialized medicine in Wikipedia is covered in great detail.

Video. As implied by T.R. Reid’s words, above, the use of the term “socialized medicine” has been used in propaganda against Medicare for All for decades. An example is this video of Ronald Reagan speaking out against the evils of socialized medicine. As of December 2009 there were over 850,000 views of this video.