Maybe we can learn something from the french?

I think the efficacy of using socialism to knock down almost any proposal in the U.S comes from successful propaganda effort by its opponents, primarily on the right, which effectively associated it with Marxism in general, and with communism in particular. Many leading conservatives are promoting the idea that such economic measures as tax increases, perhaps inevitable for the universal health care, will inevitably lead to socialism In a more benignly understandable way, “socialism” was associated with self-proclaimed “socialist” countries of the Soviet block with their indisputably suppressive regimes. Furthermore, it did not help that Socialist parties in Europe were also considering themselves to be Marxist, and often were defending communist regimes in opposition to the U.S. in the U.N. and other organization. Such organizations as “Communist International”, and more recently “Socialist International” whose members were at various times most left-wing parties all over the world, constantly professed their strong opposition to “American Imperialism”. All these interconnected factors contributed to strong negative reaction of most Americans to anything that sounded “Socialist”. This negative reaction is often used by right-wing politicians. Indeed, back in the 1950’s Senator Joe McCarthy used the insinuation of communism/socialism to get thousands of people fired from their jobs and even arrested on charges of treason. While we as a country are (hopefully) past that point to a degree, socialism still holds a special negative meaning for most Americans. Another reason why using the “socialist” label is an effective argument is because of the association of the word socialist to represent strictly European systems. There exists today in America a cultural divide between the United States and Europe and this divide harbors a degree of resentment. This resentment has led the American people to resist any change which could be seen as “Europonizing” the U.S

As we have seen throughout this course when one really dives into a health care system it becomes harder and harder to classify a health care system along one criteria. Thus, labels such as “socialism” are becoming fairly meaningless, other than for the propaganda purposes. But broadly speaking I would have to say that yes there do exist “socialist” health systems in Europe such as France and the U.K. and even more so in the Scandinavian countries but is it all that bad? Furthermore, one can argue in the same propaganda mode, that our Medicare system is a step toward “socialism”. What socialism really means in this context is that it is a government’s duty to ensure the social welfare of the people by enacting social reforms and policy. This is a broad definition which includes many European countries and indeed parts of the American health care system as well!

In closing, there are many health care system with “socialist” elements but it is a misleading oversimplification to call them “socialist”, and then dismiss them or refuse to learn from them simply because you are scared of the word “socialism”.

I just wanted to share this article which I found http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/Democracy_Index_2007_v3.pdf it ranks the democracies of the world according to how democratic they are. Go to page 3. Out of about 55 the U.S ranks 23! I was very surprised.