Is national health insurance “socialized medicine”?
No. Socialized medicine is a system in which doctors and hospitals work for the government and draw salaries from the government. The U.S. actually does have a sector with such a system – Doctors in the Veterans Administration and the Armed Services are paid this way. Examples also exist in Great Britain and Spain. But in fact most European countries, Canada, Australia and Japan they have government financing, or governement health insurance, but not socialized medicine. The government pays for care that is delivered in the private (mostly not-for-profit) sector. This is similar to how Medicare works in this country. Doctors are in private practice and are paid on a fee-for-service basis from government funds. The government does not own or manage their medical practices or hospitals. The term socialized medicine is often used to conjure images of government bureaucratic interference in medical care (and of course for good old fashioned red baiting). That does not describe what actuall
