In discussing health care reform this year, conservative media figures have revived the "socialized medicine" smear to undermine the efforts of President Obama and congressional Democrats, most recently by promoting Ronald Reagan's 1961 attacks on a legislative precursor to Medicare.

In light of this trend, Media Matters for America is updating and republishing its March 5 report documenting that health care reform opponents have baselessly smeared at least 16 previous progressive reform proposals as "socialized medicine" over the last 75 years.

Obama has not proposed socialized medicine, single payer, or nationalized health care.

As PolitiFact.com noted in a March 5 post, "Obama's plan leaves in place the private health care system, but seeks to expand it to the uninsured," and "the plan is very different from some European-style health systems where the government owns health clinics and employs doctors." And during a March 26 online town hall, Obama explicitly rejected the notion of implementing a health care system "the way European countries do or Canada does," explaining that what "we should do is to build on the [employer-based] system that we have."

"Socialized medicine" smear is false READ MORE