Socialized medicine

This article is about the term "socialized medicine" as it is used in U.S. politics. For national health care systems generally, see Universal health care.

Socialized medicine is a term used in the United States to describe and discuss systems of universal health care—medical and hospital care for all by means of government regulation of health care and subsidies derived from taxation.[1] Because of historically negative associations with socialism in American culture, the term is usually used pejoratively in American political discourse.[2][3][4][5][6] The term was first widely used in the United States by advocates of the American Medical Association in opposition to President Harry S. Truman's 1947 health care initiative.[7][8][9] It was later used in opposition to Medicare. The Affordable Care Act has been described in terms of socialized medicine, but the act's objective is rather socialized insurance, not government ownership of hospitals and other facilities as is common in other nations.

  1. ^ The American Heritage Medical Dictionary, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
  2. ^ Paul Burleigh Horton; Gerald R. Leslie (1965). The Sociology of Social Problems. p. 59. (cited as an example of a standard propaganda device)
  3. ^ Rushefsky, Mark E.; Patel, Kant (2006). Health Care Politics And Policy in America. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe. p. 47. ISBN 978-0-7656-1478-0. ....socialized medicine, a pejorative term used to help polarize debate
  4. ^ Dorothy Porter (1999). Health, Civilization, and the State. Routledge. p. 252. ISBN 978-0-415-12244-3. ...what the Americans liked to call "socialized medicine"...
  5. ^ Paul Wasserman; Don Hausrath (2006). Weasel Words: The Dictionary of American Doublespeak. Capital Books. p. 60. ISBN 978-1-933102-07-8. One of the terms to denigrate and attack any system under which complete medical aid would be provided to every citizen through public funding.
  6. ^ Edward Conrad Smith. New Dictionary of American Politics. p. 350. A somewhat loose term applied to...
  7. ^ W. Michael Byrd; Linda A. Clayton (2002). An American Health Dilemma: Race, medicine, and health care in the United States, 1900–2000. pp. 238 ff.
  8. ^ T.R. Reid (2009). The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care.
  9. ^ Reid, T.R. (November 4, 2010). "The Healing of America (excerpt)". ABC News. Archived from the original on November 5, 2010. Retrieved September 5, 2009.