"Socialized" medicine: Next front in the right's "-isms" arms race
An "-isms" arms race is under way in America.
Turn on cable news or talk radio and you're likely to hear a conservative host, right-wing pundit, or Republican elected official accuse President Obama and the Democratic Congress of just about every "-ism" in the book.
Socialism, Marxism, Leninism, fascism, Nazism, Stalinism, Maoism -- few, if any, "-isms" have been spared as the right escalates its daily verbal assault on the progressive agenda.
In fact, according to a search of broadcasts on TVEyes.com, since Obama's inauguration in January, these terms and others like them have been thrown around on cable news at least 3,000 times. Add conservative talk radio and the nation's newspaper op-ed pages to the mix and watch that figure grow like a well-watered, limited edition Bill O'Reilly Chia Pet.
Take the third most-listened-to radio voice in America, San Francisco's Michael Savage, who recently called Obama "a neo-Marxist fascist dictator in the making." That's one of the kinder things Savage has said of the president during his daily three-hour hatefest. He's also claimed that the "radical left," including Obama, "dream[s]" of "Maoist revolution" with "death camps" and that Obama appointees "actually have almost the same exact policies as the Nazi Party did."
Then there's Fox News' "-ism" king, Sean Hannity, who has dubbed the United States under Obama the "United States of France" (bonus points for bringing up the dreaded French) and the president himself "commissar-in-chief." Hannity, who hates to pass up an opportunity to advance GOP talking points, has even applauded congressional Republicans for finally using the "S-word." He's also said the Obama administration "is on a mission to hijack capitalism in favor of collectivism. ... The Bolsheviks have already arrived." He opened one recent show by declaring, "Day number 52 of the socialism that you've been waiting for." At least he can count. Spelling, on the other hand, doesn't appear to be Hannity's strong suit. His Red-baiting blood runs so -- well, red, I guess, that his program recently misspelled "comrades" in on-air graphics.
The same folks who've likened progressive policy initiatives to communism have gone on to accuse the president and other Democrats of "McCarthyism." The bizarre nature of this historical comparison is apparently lost on those making the charge. It would be a bit like practicing magic days before kicking off a witch hunt. Hocus-pocus, indeed.
No issue incurs the wrath of these modern-day Red hunters more than health-care reform. For more than 75 years, conservatives have smeared progressive attempts to reform our faltering health-care system as "socialized medicine."
Let's get one thing straight. Anyone who argues that progressive health-care reform initiatives amount to "socialized medicine" is being disingenuous at best. At worst, they lack a basic understanding of what "socialized medicine" really is.
Simply put, health-care reform that leaves the for-profit health insurance industry intact, reform that leaves doctors and other medical professionals free to offer their services outside of a government system, reform that leaves citizens free to choose a private health-care plan over a government plan simply can't be described honestly as "socialized medicine."
As the Urban Institute put it last year, "socialized medicine involves government financing and direct provision of health care services," and therefore, progressive health-care reform proposals do not "fit this description."
That is correct, of course, but that hasn't stopped conservatives from claiming otherwise for decades. Since the 1930s, conservatives have assailed at least 16 different progressive health-care reform initiatives as "socialized medicine" or as a step that would inevitably lead in that direction.
What exactly has constituted "socialized medicine" to conservatives over the past seven-plus decades?
How about Franklin Roosevelt's consideration of government health insurance when crafting the 1935 bill that created Social Security, or Lyndon Johnson's 1965 amendment to the Social Security Act establishing Medicare? Both raised the ire of conservatives, who were quick to run with the "socialized medicine" smear.
In fact, back in 1964, Ronald Reagan, then stumping for GOP presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, said of Medicare, "Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor's fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients."
Like Roosevelt and Johnson decades before him, Bill Clinton's health-care initiative in 1993 and 1994 and his work to create the State Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997 were attacked time and again as "socialized medicine."
Pick a progressive president. Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Clinton, and now Obama -- they've all faced the stale "socialized medicine" routine from the right.
Will it get any better in the weeks and months ahead as Congress debates the president's budget, which will reportedly seek to reform health care? I'm not holding my breath. My own political pessim-ism? More like real-ism with an eye toward history.
Karl Frisch is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog, research, and information center in Washington, D.C. Frisch also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the web as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or sign-up to receive his columns by email.
Karl, you left out Glenn Beck who is claiming we're marching towards fascism. Even plays nazi footage in the background to "back up" his grandiose claim.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/01/beck-march-to-fascism/
Thats why Glenn was crying, he has even claimed FEMA is building concentration camps.
Thanks for your comment snoopy. Beck would have been good. I could have included just about any conservative on cable or radio. This column really could have been a book if you look at who is saying this type of stuff and how often they're saying it.
God forbid we should forget the lunatic-fringe likes of Glenn Beck.
I'm hoping that this backfires. The medical insurance mess has not rectified itself since the corporations put out the same tired expression back in the "Harry and Louise" days. I believe that most thinking people can observe this. It's screwed up for EVERYONE, even the "28 percenters" that the media loves to kowtow to.
Im afraid we are going to have to put up with this cr-p from thr RIGHT for at least the next 4 years. The RIGHTIES cant handle being out of power.
Fear nothing from these creeps. They are the ones who broke the economy and refuse to do anything to fix it. They are the ones who should fear disdain that the vast majority of Americans have for their destructive conservative agenda.
Who cares what these petulant brats are saying? They have no alternative ideas other than to privatize medicare, without any federal cost controls, and make seniors dependent on vouchers from the government to go buy private insurance. It is a vulgar form of corporate Marxism that takes our money and redistributes to the obscene profiteers in the insurance industry. It's win/win/win for the insurance companies instead of the rest of us who sacrifice and endure privation in the of rugged individualism. Not only are the for profit junkies subsidized by those vouchers, they can launch prices into the stratosphere all while having no obligation to actually provide the services for which they bleed us.
Screw that. Republicans will not be satisfied until they inflict a militant corporate totalitarian state on America. You don't believe that? Their budget would freeze all non-defense spending for five years and would further cut taxes for the wealthy, thereby transferring another 4 trillion upward. Every time you hear a Republican talk about tax cuts, you know they are talking about destroying our government's ability to invest in the well-being of hard working, every day Americans. The Republican agenda will destroy our greatest American traditions that entrusts our society to be our brother's keeper.
How's that for some -isms, you anti-American con-job punks?
that should read, in the name of rugged individualism.
roundhouse, "rugged individualsm " means you are on your own if you get into trouble.
The fact is we are in an unprecedented time with this recession. The government is the only one who can spend the kind of capital it will take to infuse and jumpstart this economy. People who complain about their taxes being raised, particularly those who will not be impacted at all, need to stop thinking with their wallets and start thinking with their pride of country that has affored them such opportunity.
Amen, westla.
Thank you for taking the time to read through my atrocious grammar to provide a thoughtful, healthy and productive common sense counter-balance to those hard hearted, juvenile tropes, with which Jamesb below, infects the public debate.
But never forget that the impact of these unprecedented times could have been easily softened, as we see by example in the rest of the industrialized, more people friendly world, that in the presence of a strong social compact; massive government spending on healthcare, education and infrastructure is not necessitated. They already have in place, in countries like France: healthcare for all and good public transit; weeks of paid vacation and maternity leave; strong unions and sensible work weeks. Hence, they can tell Obama, "we don't have the same pressing need to stimulate spending power because we already have our citizens better insulated from declines in consumer demand. What we need, what the world needs, from America is better restrictions on your financial markets and more sensible conditions on your bailouts so we can avoid future financial devastations like this one." And what's Obama to say? "No, to improve your economy we need you to follow our lead and give all your money to your banks and auto makers?"
Sure, dude. It's whatever, man.
just a couple corrections. You aren't transferring money when you leave more of it to those who have earned it, who will invest and grow the economy and create jobs. And please show me in the constitution where our society is entrusted to be our brother's keeper? Another squishy liberal phrase meaning take from those who earn and give to those that don't.
JAMES,Dont you feel great with what the rich did with their tax cuts running the countrys economy into the ditch?
Leave money for dissociative beneficiaries of wanton materialism, as if it's the obligation of working people to accede tribute to their financial betters?
We are citizens; not subjects.
Yes, lets revisit the constitution. shall we?
A constitution that states that African-Americans are two-thirds human, and that the only members of society permitted to vote are white male property owners over the age of 21.
You may even think. "I'm a white male property owner, so under the original, strict interpretation of the constitution, I would be ok."
Think again. Unless you own your property lock, stock and barrel, you aren't a property owner, the bank is.
You strict constitutionalists want this country to be 250 years behind the rest of the world.
Read the enlightenment figures who inspired our unoriginal founding fathers: John Locke, J.S. Mill, Jean-Jaques Rousseau (quelle horreur, a Frenchman!), and Adam Smith: what these great minds envisioned was much more in line with progressive ideology than with 'conservative' ideology.
Don't you get it? 'Librul' isn't a pejorative anymore - 'conservative' is.
Conservatives fight to keep the rights that liberals fought for a generation ago.
I'm rather surprised that someone in the national media doesn't point out that the health-care reform being discussed is indeed not socialized medicine. It really wouldn't take, say, Good Morning America more than a 3-minute segment to call attention to it -- and the whole of the US would be better informed about what is actually being proposed. Left unchallenged, the socialized medicine meme seriously distorts the public's idea of what is being attempted -- just as in 1993, as I recall (when the socialized medicine had the bonus smear of being the project of an uppity woman who ought to have known her place!). I suppose that's the whole point. Yet, it really only takes one editor to put the story on.
Good point mrhebert74. It really wouldn't take much work for someone to do a story on this -- or, imagaine this, challenge someone who calls it "socialized medicine" with the facts. Heck, you could probably find some folks who WANT "socialized medicine" to rebut the claim that this reform is anything like what they want.
I know I say this a hundred times within these pages, but the corporate media exists to protect the profit makers, ie the drug and med insurance companies. As in lobbying in Washington, I'm sure the profiteers lavish fine booty onto the media company decisionmakers and editorial staff. They all have insurance and soma.
Good work, Mr. Frisch. Well done.
I have some unqualified observations and comments based on political readings that I truly hope do not offend.
Indeed, give the "socialized medicine" partisans the facts of healthcare reform, but know that all the people who hear the facts, the entrenched and those open to change, will not necessarily reason their way to the truth. That is to say we are not detached, rational actors that measure and balance units of objective information and conclude independently what is in our own best interest. We are prone to persuasion by our peers. Reporters are no different. They report on the stories they are given or unearth by unfolding, hopefully, unbiased stories for their audience. True, news stories are often controlled by editors and special interests and are therefore biased, but Democrats, progressives and liberals should take control of their own story by doing more than merely presenting raw facts or lists.
The mind has evolved over the centuries as an organ that reasons by way of human experience and through the collective memory of handed down stories and memories. Truth and facts of nature are learned from the people in our lives by whom we are surrounded. We would better inform people, and the media, about Obama's healthcare reform policies by nestling the facts in narratives that tell the tales of how change in policy affects people's lives for better or worse.
In my humble understanding of how the political brain works, that's how we change minds.
I lived in Spain for eight years, and my father lives there now. During the time I lived there, I had access to 'Seguridad Social' or 'socialized medicine'. Doctors made house calls, I could get antibiotics from the pharmacy without a prescription, and drugs were much cheaper than in the US. It's not a perfect system, but it works for the citizenry of Spain.
My father has private insurance in Spain, mostly because he can't stand sharing a room in the hospital. He has had 30% of his pancreas removed (chronic pancreatitis), smokes 3 packs a day, and recently spent a month in the hospital with an abdominal infection. He pays $400/mo. for private insurance.
My mother, in the US, has no medical problems, smokes 1/4 pack a day, and pays $800/mo. for Kaiser (which is lousy)!
Point being, when the government provides health care and private insurance is allowed to coexist, private insurance is cheaper because it has to compete with government health care.
This is certainly not brought up in our media.They are lying to cover for the Insurance companies.
When private industry has to compete with government programs, you win!
Additionally, 'socialized medicine' was put in place by a fascist dictator in Spain: Franco. This demonstrates that 'socialized medicine' is a solution that goes beyond the narrow limits of ideology (or -isms, as the author puts it).
I still say that Obama isn't being "socialist" enough. What is desperately neede is, quite simply, universal single payer healthcare. Period. Get the for profit insurance companies out of the loop. If people want health insurance for medical "specials"; cosmetic surgery, breast implants, botox, a private room, etc., fine. However, universal single payer (including vision and dental coverage) would almost pay for itself in a healthier country and work force, feweer emergency room admittances, etc.
Conservatives like "-isms" just fine. We just like different ones; capitalism, individualism (personal responsibility) Judaism, Catholicism. Get the picture?
As for universal health care, socialized medicine, or whatever you want to call it, Obama is moving us there gradually. Obviously , if he came out tomorrow and that the government was going to take over our healthcare system, it wouldn't fly for most folks. Just like if he came out and said that the goverment was going to take over AIG and the banking and auto indrustry, that wouldn't fly either. So like most liberals, he calls a booger a beer. and sells it to you for 3 bucks.
For the record, the politicians are playing us all.
catholothisim
Are you saying liberals don't like those -isms? Also, could you explain what you are referring to with your booger and beer analogy?
I really don't see where you are going with this.
What scares me to no end is the fact that we still have Americans (in this age of the internets) still so misinformed and so ignorant to the facts and reality that they still fall for the right-wing corporate arguments!
That these same people still... every two and four years... still go out of their collective way to vote against their own interests...
It would be a sick deplorable joke...all of it... if not for the very real and very horrendous damage rightwing ideology does to us as a society!