Ezra Klein continues his Health Care Reform for Beginners series this week with Health Care Reform for Beginners: The Many Flavors of the Public Plan and Health Reform for Beginners: The Difference Between Socialized Medicine, Single-Payer Health Care, and What We’ll Be Getting.
You’ll want to read them both, but here I want to focus on the pretty pictures.
On the evidence, the correct answer is “better”, but let’s move to the fun one. 30% of Americans polled think that I’m already getting socialized medicine (Blue Shield HMO, as it happens):
Klein writes,
You’re reading that right. About 30 percent of Americans think HMOs are socialized medicine. Which implies a couple things. First, the term “socialized medicine” has been diluted beyond all meaning. Second, it’s no longer considered a terrifying outcome. And third, nothing that’s this amorphous — and actually preferred by a plurality of the population — is likely to prove a terribly effective attack against health reform. Socialized medicine has become such a stand-in for “not this system of medicine” that it’s begun to look good in comparison.